CARE 

and 

BULTURE  of  MEN 

By    DAVID    STARR    JORDAN 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT  OF 

Rabbi  Ernest  R,   Trattner 


^UrCiVil^^^ 


THE    CARE    AND    CULTURE 

OF    MEN 

A    SERIES    OF    ADDRESSES 

ON    THE 

HIGHER   EDUCATION 


BT 

DAVID   STARR  JORDAN 

President  of   Lei.and  Stanford  Junior   University 
AND  OF  THE  California  Academy  of  Sciences 


*•  The  best  Polilical  Economy  is  the  care  and  culture  of  men.''' 

— Emerson. 


SAN   FRANCISCO 
THE  WHITAKER   &   RAY  COMPANY 

(INCORPORATED) 


1903 


Copyright,  1896 

By 

David  Staer  Jokdan 


College 
Library 

IE. 
176 


TO 
JANE    LATHROP    STANFORD 


1G53338 


Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2007  witii  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


littp://www.arcliive.org/details/carecultureofmenOOjordiala 


PREFATORY  NOTE. 

This  volume  is  made  up  of  addresses  relating  to  higher 
education,  delivered  at  different  times  before  assemblies  of 
teachers  and  students.  The  writer  is  under  obligation  to  the 
publishers  of  the  Popular  Science  Monthly,  the  Forum,  and 
the  Occ/dental  Medical  Times  for  the  permission  to  reprint 
articles  which  have  appeared  in  these  periodicals.  The  arti- 
cle on  "The  Evolution  of  the  College  Curriculum,"  first 
published  in  "Science  Sketches,"  is  here  reprinted  by  con- 
sent of  A.  C.  McClurg  &  Co.,  and  that  on  "The  Higher 
Education  of  Women"  is  reprinted  by  consent  of  the  Irving 
Syndicate.  Most  of  the  articles  have  been  freely  retouched 
since  their  original  publication. 

Palo  Alto,  Cal.,  May  14,  1896. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 

PAGB 

I.  The  Value  of  Higher  Education i 

II.  The  Evolution  of  the  College  Curriculum    24 

III.  The  Nation's  Need  of  Men 57  / 

IV.  The  Care  and  Culture  of  Men 67^ 

V.  The  Scholar  in  the  Community 76 

VI.  The  School  and  the  State 95 

VII.  The  Higher  Education  of  Women 123 

VIII.  The  Training  of  the  Physician 133 

IX.  Law  Schools  and  Lawyers 150 

X.  The  Practical  Education 163 

XI.  Science  in  the  High  School 173 

XII.  Science  and  the  Colleges 183 

XIII.  The  Procession  of  Life 203 

XIV.  The  Growth  of  Man 208 

XV.  The  Social  Order 228 

XVI.  The  Saving  of  Time 236 

XVII.  The  New  University 259 

XVIII.  A  Castle  in  Spain 268 


THE   CARE  AND   CULTURE  OF  MEN. 


I. 
THE   VALUE    OF    HIGHER    EDUCATION. 

WHAT  I  have  to  say  here  is  addressed  to  young 
men  and  young  women.  It  is  a  plea,  as  strong 
as  I  know  how  to  make  it,  for  higher  education,  for  more 
thorough  preparation  for  the  duties  of  Hfe.  I  know  those 
well  to  whom  I  wish  to  speak.  And  to  such  as  these, 
with  the  life  and  duties  in  the  busy  world  before  you, 
the  best  advice  I  or  any  one  can  give  is  this:  *'  Go  to 
college." 

And  you  may  say :  "  These  four  years  are  among  the 
best  of  my  life.  The  good  the  college  does  must  be 
great,  if  I  should  spend  this  time  and  money  in  securing 
it.     What  will  the  college  do  for  me  ?  " 

It  may  do  many  things  for  you,  —  if  you  are  made  of 
the  right  stuff;  for  you  cannot  fasten  a  two-thousand- 
dollar  education  to  a  fifty-cent  boy.  The  fool,  the  dude, 
and  the  shirk  come  out  of  college  pretty  much  as  they 
went  in.  They  dive  deep  in  the  Pierian  springs,  as  the 
duck  dives  in  the  pond, —  and  they  come  up  as  dry  as 
the  duck  does.    The  college  will  not  do  everything  for 

*Address  before  the  California  State  Teachers'  Association  at  Fresno,  1892. 
B  I 


2         THE   VALUE  OF  HIGHER  EDUCATION. 

you.  It  is  simply  one  of  the  helps  by  which  you  can 
win  your  way  to  a  noble  manhood  or  womanhood. 
Whatever  you  are,  you  must  make  of  yourself;  but  a 
well-spent  college  life  is  one  of  the  greatest  helps  to  all 
good  things. 

So,  if  you  learn  to  use  it  rightly,  this  the  college  can 
do  for  you:  It  will  bring  you  in  contact  with  the  great 
minds  of  the  past,  the  long  roll  of  those  who,  through 
the  ages,  have  borne  a  mission  to  young  men  and  young 
women,  from  Plato  to  Emerson,  from  Homer  and  Eu- 
ripides to  Schiller  and  Browning,  Your  thought  will  be 
limited  not  by  the  narrow  gossip  of  to-day,  but  the  great 
men  of  all  ages  and  all  climes  will  become  your  brothers. 
You  will  learn  to  feel  what  the  Greek  called  the  ' '  conso- 
lations of  philosophy."  To  turn  from  the  petty  troubles 
of  the  day  to  the  thoughts  of  the  masters,  is  to  go  from 
the  noise  of  the  street  through  the  door  of  a  cathedral. 
If  you  learn  to  unlock  these  portals,  no  power  on  earth 
can  take  from  you  the  key.  The  whole  of  your  life  must 
be  spent  in  your  own  company,  and  only  the  educated 
man  is  good  company  for  himself  The  uneducated 
man  looks  out  on  life  through  narrow  windows,  and  thinks 
the  world  is  small. 

The  college  can  bring  you  face  to  face  with  the  great 
problems  of  nature.  You  will  learn  from  your  study  of 
nature's  laws  more  than  the  books  can  tell  you  of  the 
grandeur,  the  power,  the  omnipotence  of  God.  You 
will  learn  to  face  great  problems  seriously.  You  will 
learn  to  work  patiently  at  their  solution,  though  you 
know  that  many  generations  must  each  add  its  mite  to 
your  work  before  any  answer  can  be  reached. 

Your  college  course  will  bring  you  in  contact  with 


THE    IDEAL    TEACHER.  3 

men  whose  influence  will  strengthen  and  inspire.  The 
ideal  college  professor  should  be  the  best  man  in  the 
community.  He  should  have  about  him  nothing  mean, 
or  paltry,  or  cheap.  He  should  be  to  the  student  as 
David  Copperfield's  Agnes,  "always  pointing  the  way 
upward." 

That  we  are  all  this,  I  shall  not  pretend.  Most  col- 
lege professors  whom  I  know  are  extremely  human. 
We  have  been  soured,  and  starved,  and  dwarfed  in  many 
ways,  and  many  of  us  are  not  the  men  we  might  have 
been  if  we  had  had  your  chances  for  early  education. 
But  unpractical,  pedantic,  fossilized  though  the  college 
professor  may  be,  his  heart  is  in  the  right  place ;  he  is 
not  mercenary,  and  his  ideals  are  those  of  culture  and 
progress.  We  are  keeping  the  torch  burning  which  you, 
young  men  of  the  twentieth  century,  may  carry  to  the 
top  of  the  mountain. 

But  here  and  there  among  us  is  the  ideal  teacher, 
the  teacher  of  the  future,  the  teacher  to  have  known 
whom  is  of  itself  a  liberal  education.  I  have  met  some 
such  in  my  day  —  Louis  Agassiz,  Charles  Frederick 
Hartt,  Asa  Gray,  George  William  Curtis,  James  Rus- 
sell Lowell,  Andrew  Dickson  White,  among  others,  and 
there  are  many  more  such  in  our  land.  It  is  worth  ten 
years  of  your  life  to  know  well  one  such  man  as  these. 
Garfield  once  said  that  a  log  with  Mark  Hopkins  at  one 
end  of  it  and  himself  at  the  other,  would  be  a  university. 
In  whatever  college  you  go,  poor  and  feeble  though 
the  institution  may  be,  you  will  find  some  man  who,  in 
some  degree,  will  be  to  you  what  Mark  Hopkins  was 
to  Garfield.  To  know  him  will  repay  you  for  all  your 
sacrifices.     It  was  said  of  Dr.  Nott,  of  Union  College, 


4        THE    VALUE   OF  HIGHER   EDUCATION. 

that  he  "took  the  sweepings  of  other  colleges,  and 
sent  them  back  into  society  pure  gold."  Such  was  his 
influence  on  young  men. 

Moreover,  the  training  which  comes  from  association 
with  one's  fellow-students  cannot  be  overestimated.  Here 
and  there,  it  is  true,  some  young  invertebrate,  overbur- 
dened with  money  or  spoiled  by  home-coddling,  falls 
into  bad  company,  and  leaves  college  in  worse  condition 
than  when  he  entered  it.  These  are  the  windfalls  of 
education.  However  much  we  may  regret  them,  we 
cannot  prevent  their  existence.  But  they  are  few  among 
the  great  majority.  Most  of  our  apples  are  not  worm- 
eaten  at  the  core.  The  average  student  enters  college 
for  a  purpose  ;  and  you  will  lose  nothing,  but  may  gain 
much,  from  association  with  him.  Among  our  college 
students  are  the  best  young  men  of  the  times.  They 
mold  each  other's  character,  and  shape  each  other's 
work.  Many  a  college  man  will  tell  you  that,  above  all 
else  which  the  college  gave,  he  values  the  friendships 
which  he  formed  in  school.  In  the  German  universities, 
the  ' '  fellow-feeling  among  free  spirits ' '  is  held  to  be  one 
of  the  most  important  elements  in  their  grand  system 
of  higher  education. 

Many  a  great  genius  has  risen  and  developed  in  soli- 
tude, as  the  trailing  arbutus  grows  in  the  woods  and 
scorns  cultivation.  Poets  sing  because  their  souls  are 
full  of  music,  not  because  they  have  learned  the  gamut 
of  passions  in  schools.  But  all  great  work,  in  science, 
in  philosophy,  in  the  humanities,  has  come  from  enter- 
ing into  the  work  of  others. 

There  was  once  a  Chinese  emperor  who  decreed  that 
he  was  to  be  the  first;   that  all  history  was  to  begin 


ENTERING  INTO   THE   WORK  OF  OTHERS.     5 

with  him,  and  that  nothing  should  be  before  him.  But 
we  cannot  enforce  such  decree.  We  are  not  emperors 
of  China.  The  world's  work,  the  world's  experience 
does  not  begin  with  us.  We  must  know  what  has  been 
done  before.  We  must  know  the  paths  our  predeces- 
sors have  trodden,  if  we  would  tread  them  farther.  We 
must  stand  upon  their  shoulders  —  dwarfs  upon  the  shoul- 
ders of  the  giants  —  if  we  would  look  farther  into  the 
future  than  they.  Science,  philosophy,  statesmanship 
cannot  for  a  moment  let  go  of  the  past 

The  college  intensifies  the  individuality  of  a  man.  It 
takes  his  best  abilities  and  raises  him  to  the  second,  or 
third,  or  tenth  power,  as  we  say  in  algebra.  It  is  true 
enough  that  colleges  have  tried,  and  some  of  them  still 
try,  to  enforce  uniformity  in  study  —  to  cast  all  students 
in  the  same  mold.  Colleges  have  been  conservative, 
old-fogyish,  if  you  please.  Musty  old  men  in  the  dust 
of  libraries  have  tried  to  make  young  men  dry  and 
dreary  like  themselves.  Colleges  have  placed  readi- 
ness above  thoroughness,  memory  above  mastery,  glib- 
ness  above  sincerity,  uniformity  above  originality,  and 
the  dialectics  of  the  dead  past  above  the  work  of  the 
living  present  The  scepter  of  the  Roman  emperor  has 
crumbled  into  dust,  but  the  ' '  rod  of  the  Roman  school- 
master is  over  us  still." 

But  say  what  you  will  of  old  methods,  they  often  at- 
tained great  ends.  Colleges  have  aimed  at  uniformity. 
They  did  not  secure  it.  The  individuality  of  the  stu- 
dent bursts  through  the  cast-iron  curriculum.  "The 
man's  the  man  for  a'  that,"  and  the  man  is  so  much 
more  the  man  nature  meant  him  to  be,  because  his  mind 
is  trained. 


6        THE   VALUE  OF  HIGHER    EDUCATION. 

The  educated  man  has  the  courage  of  his  convictions, 
because  only  he  has  any  real  convictions.  He  knows 
how  convictions  should  be  formed.  What  he  believes 
he  takes  on  his  own  evidence  —  not  because  it  is  the 
creed  of  his  church  or  the  platform  of  his  party.  So  he 
counts  as  a  unit  in  his  community  —  not  as  part  of  a 
dozen  or  a  hundred  whose  opinions  are  formed  by  their 
town's  place  on  the  map,  or  who  train  under  the  party 
flag  because  their  grandfathers  did  the  same.  ' '  To  see 
things  as  they  really  are,"  is  one  of  the  crowning  priv- 
ileges of  the  educated  man,  and  to  help  others  to  see 
them  so,  is  one  of  the  greatest  services  he  can  render  to 
the  community. 

But  you  may  say:  "All  this  may  be  fine  and  true, 
but  it  does  not  apply  in  my  case.  I  am  no  genius;  I 
shall  never  be  a  scholar.  I  want  simply  to  get  along. 
Give  me  education  enough  to  teach  a  district  school,  or 
to  run  an  engine,  or  to  keep  account-books,  and  I  am 
satisfied.  Any  kind  of  a  school  will  be  good  enough  for 
that." 

"The  youth  gets  together  his  materials, "  says  Tho- 
reau,  ' '  to  build  a  bridge  to  the  moon,  or  perchance  a 
palace  or  temple  on  the  earth,  and,  at  length,  the  middle- 
aged  man  concludes  to  build  a  woodshed  with  them. ' ' 

Now,  why  not  plan  for  a  woodshed  at  first,  aad  save 
this  waste  of  time  and  materials  ? 

But  this  Ls  the  very  good  of  it.  The  gathering  of 
these  materials  will  strengthen  the  youth.  It  may  be 
the  means  of  saving  him  from  idleness,  from  vice.  So 
long  as  you  are  at  work  on  your  bridge  to  the  moon, 
you  will  shun  the  saloon,  and  we  shall  not  see  you  on 
the  dry-goods  box  in  front  of  the  corner-grocery.     I 


THE  MAN  WHO   CAN  WILL.  7 

know  many  a  man  who  in  early  life  planned  only  to  build 
a  woodshed,  but  who  found  later  that  he  had  the  strength 
to  build  a  temple,  if  he  only  had  the  materials.  Many 
a  man  the  world  calls  successful  would  give  all  life  has 
brought  him  could  he  make  up  for  the  disadvantages 
of  his  lack  of  early  training.  It  does  not  hurt  a  young 
man  to  be  ambitious  in  some  honorable  direction.  In 
the  pure-minded  youth,  ambition  is  the  sum  of  all  the 
virtues.  Lack  of  ambition  means  failure  from  the 
start.  The  young  man  who  is  aiming  at  nothing,  and 
cares  not  to  rise,  is  already  dead.  There  is  no  hope  for 
him.  Only  the  sexton  and  the  undertaker  can  serve  his 
purposes. 

The  old  traveler,  Rafinesque,  tells  us  that,  when  he 
was  a  boy,  he  read  the  voyages  of  Captain  Cook,  and 
Pallas,  and  Le  Vaillant,  and  his  soul  was  fired  with  the 
desire  to  be  a  great  traveler  like  them.  "And  so  I  be- 
came such,"  he  adds  shortly. 

If  you  say  to  yourself,  '  *  I  will  be  a  naturalist,  a 
traveler,  an  historian,  a  statesman,  a  scholar";  if  you 
never  unsay  it;  if  you  bend  all  your  powers  in  that 
direction,  and  take  advantage  of  all  those  aids  that  help 
toward  your  ends,  and  reject  all  that  do  not,  you  will 
some  time  reach  your  goal  The  world  turns  aside  to 
let  any  man  pass  who  knows  whither  he  is  going. 

"Why  should  we  call  ourselves  men,"  said  Mira- 
beau,"  unless  it  be  to  succeed  in  everything,  every- 
where? Say  of  nothing,  'This  is  beneath  me,'  nor  feel 
that  anything  is  beyond  your  powers.  Nothing  is  im- 
possible to  the  man  who  can  will." 

"  But  a  college  education  costs  money,"  you  may  say. 
"  I  have  no  money;  therefojre,  I  cannot  go  to  college." 


8        THE   VALUE   OF  HIGHER    EDUCATION. 

But  this  is  nonsense.  If  you  have  health  and  strength, 
and  no  one  dependent  on  you,  you  cannot  be  poor. 
There  is,  in  this  country,  no  greater  good  luck  that  a 
young  man  can  have  than  to  be  thrown  on  his  own  re- 
sources. The  cards  are  stocked  against  the  rich  man's 
son.  Of  the  many  college  men  who  have  risen  to  prom- 
inence in  my  day,  very  few  did  not  lack  for  money 
in  college.  I  remember  a  little  boarding-club  of  the 
students  at  Cornell,  truthfully  called  the  "  Struggle  for 
Existence,"  and  named  for  short,  "The  Strug,"  which 
has  graduated  more  bright  minds  than  any  other  single 
organization  in  my  Alma  Mater. 

The  young  men  who  have  fought  their  way,  have 
earned  their  own  money,  and  know  what  a  dollar  costs, 
have  the  advantage  of  the  rich.  They  enter  the  world 
outside  with  no  luxurious  habits,  with  no  taste  for  idle- 
ness. It  is  not  worth  while  to  be  born  with  a  silver 
spoon  in  your  mouth,  when  a  little  effort  will  secure  you 
a  gold  one.  The  time,  the  money  that  the  unambitious 
young  man  wastes  in  trifling  pursuits  or  in  absolute  idle- 
ness will  suffice  to  give  the  ambitious  man  his  education. 
The  rich  man's  son  may  enter  college  with  better  prep- 
aration than  you.  He  may  wear  better  clothes.  He  may 
graduate  younger.  But  the  poor  man's  son  can  make 
up  for  lost  time  by  greater  energy  and  by  the  greater 
clearness  of  his  grit.  He  steps  from  the  commencement 
stage  into  no  unknown  world.  He  has  already  measured 
swords  with  the  great  antagonist,  and  the  first  victory  is 
his.     It  is  the  first  struggle  that  counts. 

But  it  is  not  poverty  that  helps  a  man.  There  is  no 
virtue  in  poor  food  or  shabby  clothing.  It  is  the  effort 
by  which  he  throws  off  the  yoke  of  poverty  that  en- 


THE    COW'S    MAN.  9 

larges  the  powers.  It  is  not  hard  work,  but  work  to  a 
purpose,  that  frees  the  soul.  If  the  poor  man  He  down 
in  the  furrow  and  say:  "  I  won't  try.  I  shall  never 
amount  to  anything.  I  am  too  poor;  and  if  I  wait  to 
earn  money,  I  shall  be  too  old  to  go  to  school. ' '  If  you 
do  this,  I  say,  you  won' t  amount  to  anything,  and  later 
in  life  you  will  be  glad  to  spade  the  rich  man's  garden 
and  to  shovel  his  coal  at  a  dollar  a  day. 

I  have  heard  of  a  poor  man  in  Wisconsin  who  earns  a 
half-dollar  every  day  by  driving  a  cow  to  pasture.  He 
watches  her  all  day  as  she  eats,  and  then  drives  her 
home  at  night.  This  is  all  he  does.  Put  here  your 
half-dollar  and  there  your  man.  The  one  balances  the 
other,  and  the  one  enriches  the  world  as  much  as  the 
other.  If  it  were  not  for  the  cow,  the  world  would  not 
need  that  man  at  all! 

A  young  man  can  have  no  nobler  ancestry  than  one 
made  up  of  men  and  women  who  have  worked  for  a  liv- 
ing and  who  have  given  honest  work.  The  instinct  of 
industry  runs  in  the  blood.  Naturalists  tell  us  that  the 
habits  of  one  generation  may  be  inherited  by  the  next, 
reappearing  as  instincts.  Whether  this  be  literally  true 
or  not,  this  we  know:  it  is  easy  to  inherit  laziness.  No 
money  or  luck  will  place  the  lazy  man  on  the  level  of  his 
industrious  neighbor.  The  industry  engendered  by  the 
pioneer  life  of  tlie  last  generation  is  still  in  your  veins. 
Sons  and  daughters  of  the  Western  pioneers,  yours  is 
the  best  blood  in  the  realm.  You  must  make  the  most 
:>f  yourselves.  If  you  cannot  get  an  education  in  four 
years,  take  ten  years.  It  is  worth  your  while.  Your 
place  in  the  world  will  wait  for  you  till  you  are  ready  to 
fill  it     Do  not  say  that  I  am  expecting  too  much  of  the 


lo       THE   VALUE   OF  HIGHER    EDUCATION. 

effects  of  a  firm  resolution;  that  I  give  you  advice  which 
will  lead  you  to  failure.  For  the  man  who  will  fail  will 
never  make  a  resolution.  Those  among  you  whom  fate 
has  cut  out  for  nobodies  are  the  ones  who  will  never  try! 

I  said  just  now  that  you  cannot  put  a  two-thousand- 
dollar  education  on  a  fifty-cent  boy.  This  has  been  tried 
again  and  again.  It  is  tried  in  every  college.  It  fails 
almost  every  time.  What  of  that?  It  does  not  hurt  to 
try.  A  few  hundred  dollars  is  not  much  to  spend  on  an 
experiment  like  that;  —  the  attempt  to  make  a  man  out 
of  a  boy  whose  life  might  otherwise  be  a  waste  of  so 
much  good  oxygen. 

But  what  shall  we  say  of  a  man  who  puts  a  fifty-cent 
education  on  a  ten-thousand-dollar,  a  million-dollar  boy, 
and  narrows  and  cramps  him  throughout  his  after  life  ? 
And  just  this  is  what  ten  thousand  parents  to-day  in  Cali- 
fornia are  doing  for  their  sons  and  daughters.  Twenty 
years  hence,  ten  thousand  men  and  women  of  California 
will  blame  them  for  their  shortness  of  sight  and  narrow- 
ness of  judgment,  in  weighing  a  few  paltry  dollars,  soon 
earned,  soon  lost,  against  the  power  which  comes  from 
mental  training. 

' '  For  a  man  to  have  died  who  might  have  been  wise 
and  was  not — this,"  says  Carlyle,  "  I  call  a  tragedy." 

Another  thing  which  should  never  be  forgotten  is  this : 
A  college  education  is  not  a  scheme  to  enable  a  man  to 
live  without  work.  Its  purpose  is  to  help  him  to  work 
to  advantage  —  to  make  every  stroke  count.  I  have 
heard  a  father  say  sometimes  :  "I  have  worked  hard 
all  my  life.  I  will  give  my  boy  an  education,  so  that  he 
will  not  have  to  drudge  as  I  have  had  to  do."  And  the 
boy  going  out  in  the  world  does  not  work  as  his  father 


THE   MAXIMS   OF  LOW  PRUDENCE.  ii 

did.  The  result  every  time  is  disappointment ;  for  the 
manhood  which  the  son  attains  depends  directly  on  his 
own  hard  work.  But  if  the  father  says  :  * '  My  son  shall 
be  a  worker,  too;  but  I  will  give  him  an  education,  so 
that  his  work  may  count  for  more  to  himself  and  to  the 
world  than  my  work  has  done  for  me."  Then,  if  the 
son  be  as  persistent  as  his  father,  the  results  of  his  work 
may  be  far  beyond  the  expectations  of  either.  The  boys 
who  are  sent  to  college  often  do  not  amount  to  much. 
From  the  boys  who  go  to  college  come  the  leaders  of 
the  future. 

Frederic  Denison  Maurice  tells  us  that  "All  experi- 
ence is  against  the  notion  that  the  means  to  produce  a 
supply  of  good,  ordinary  men  is  to  attempt  nothing 
higher.  I  know  that  nine-tenths  of  those  the  university 
sends  out  must  be  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water; 
but  if  I  train  the  ten-tenths  to  be  such,  then  the  wood 
will  be  badly  cut,  and  the  water  will  be  spilt.  Aim  at 
something  noble.  Make  your  system  of  education  such 
that  a  great  man  may  be  formed  by  it,  and  there  will  be 
a  manhood  in  your  little  men  of  which  you  did  not 
dream!" 

"You  will  hear  every  day  around  you,"  says  Emer- 
son, "  the  maxims  of  a  low  prudence.  You  will  hear  that 
your  first  duty  is  to  get  land  and  money,  place  and  name. 
'What  is  this  truth  you  seek?  What  is  this  beauty  ? ' 
men  will  ask  in  derision.  If,  nevertheless,  God  has 
called  any  of  you  to  explore  truth  and  beauty,  be  bold, 
be  firm,  be  true!  When  you  shall  say,  'As  others  do, 
so  will  I.  I  renounce,  I  am  sorry  for  it,  my  early  visions. 
I  must  eat  the  good  of  the  land  and  let  learning  and 
romantic  expectations  go  until  a  more  convenient  season.  * 


12       THE   VALUE   OF  HIGHER   EDUCATION. 

Then  dies  the  man  in  you.  Then  once  more  perish  the 
buds  of  art,  and  poetry,  and  science,  as  they  have  died 
already  in  a  hundred  thousand  men.  The  hour  of  that 
choice  is  the  crisis  of  your  destiny." 

But  you  may  ask  me  this  question  :  ' '  Will  a  college 
education  pay,  considered  solely  as  a  financial  invest- 
ment?" 

Again  I  must  answer,  "  Yes."  But  the  scholar  is  sel- 
dom disposed  to  look  upon  his  power  as  a  financial 
investment.  He  can  do  better  than  to  get  rich.  The 
scholar  will  say,  as  Agassiz  said  to  the  Boston  publisher, 
' '  I  have  no  time,  sir,  to  make  money. ' ' 

But  in  the  rank  and  file  it  is  true  that  the  educated 
men  get  the  best  salaries.  In  every  field,  from  football 
to  statesmanship,  it  is  always  science  that  wins  the  game. 
Brain-work  is  higher  than  hand-work,  and  it  is  worth 
more  in  any  market.  The  man  with  the  mind  is  the 
boss,  and  the  boss  receives  a  larger  salary  than  the  hands 
whose  work  he  directs. 

George  William  Curtis  has  said:  "I  have  heard  it 
said  that  liberal  education  does  not  promote  success  in 
life.  A  chimney-sweep  might  say  so.  Without  educa- 
tion he  could  gain  the  chimney-top  —  poor  Uttle  blacka- 
moor!—  brandish  his  brush  and  sing  his  song  of  escape 
from  soot  to  sunshine.  But  the  ideal  of  success  meas- 
ures the  worth  of  the  remark  that  it  may  be  attained 
without  liberal  education.  If  the  accumulation  of  money 
be  the  standard,  we  must  admit  that  a  man  might  make 
a  fortune  in  a  hundred  ways  without  education.  But 
he  could  make  a  fortune,  also,  without  purity  of  life,  or 
noble  character,  or  lofty  faith.  A  man  can  pay  much  too 
high  a  price  for  money,  and  not  every  man  who  buys 


PRACTICAL  WORTH.  13 

it  knows  its  relative  value  with  other  possessions.  Un- 
doubtedly, Ezra  Cornell  and  Matthew  Vassar  did  not  go 
to  college,  and  they  succeeded  in  life.  But  their  success 
—  what  was  it?  Where  do  you  see  it  now?  Surely  not 
in  their  riches,  but  in  the  respect  that  tenderly  cherishes 
their  memory,  because,  knowing  its  inestimable  value, 
they  gave  to  others  the  opportunity  of  education  which 
had  been  denied  to  them." 

Some  time  ago,  Chancellor  Lippincott,  of  the  State 
University  of  Kansas,  wrote  to  each  of  the  graduates 
of  that  institution,  asking  them  to  state  briefly  the  ad- 
vantages which  their  experience  showed  that  they  have 
derived  from  their  college  life  and  work. 

Among  these  answers,  I  may  quote  a  few: 

One  says  :  * '  My  love  for  the  State  grew  with  every 
lesson  I  received  through  her  care.  I  saved  five  years 
of  my  life  by  her  training,  and  I  am  a  more  loyal  and 
a  better  citizen. ' ' 

Another  says  this  :  "I  have  a  better  standing  in 
the  community  than  I  could  have  gained  in  any  other 
way. ' ' 

Another  says  :  "I  would  not  exchange  the  advantages 
gained  for  a  hundred  times  their  cost,  either  to  Kansas 
or  to  myself." 

Another  declares:  "It  is  financially  the  best  invest- 
ment I  ever  made. ' ' 

To  another  it  had  given  "strong  friendship  with  the 
most  intelligent  young  men  of  the  State,  those  who  are 
certain  to  largely  influence  its  destiny.' ' 

One  said:  "  It  has  given  me  a  place  and  an  influence 
among  a  class  of  men  whom  I  could  not  otherwise  reach 
at  all." 


/ 


14       THE    VALUE   OF  HIGHER   EDUCATION. 

Another  said:  "  I  am  better  company  for  myself,  and 
a  better  citizen,  with  far  more  practical  interest  in  the 
State." 

Thus  it  is  in  Kansas,  and  thus  it  is  everywhere.  To 
the  young  man  or  young  woman  of  character,  the  col- 
lege education  does  pay,  from  whatever  standpoint  you 
may  choose  to  regard  it. 

When  I  was  a  boy  on  a  farm  in  Western  New  York, 
some  one  urged  my  parents  to  send  me  to  college. 
"  But  what  will  he  find  to  do  when  he  gets  through  col- 
lege?" they  asked.  "  Never  mind  that, "  a  friend  said; 
' '  he  will  always  find  plenty  to  do.  There  is  always  room 
at  the  top."  There  is  always  room  at  the  top!  All  our 
professions  are  crowded  in  America,  but  the  crowd  is 
around  the  bottom  of  the  ladder! 

We  are  proud,  and  justly  proud,  of  our  common- 
school  system.  The  free  school  stands  on  every  North- 
ern cross-road,  and  it  is  rapidly  finding  its  way  into  the 
great  New  South.  Every  effort  is  made  for  the  educa- 
tion of  the  masses.  There  is  no  upper  caste  to  reap  the 
benefits  of  an  education,  for  which  the  poor  man  has  to 
pay.  There  is  no  class  educated  and  ruUng  by  right  of 
birth  —  no  hereditary  House  of  Lords.  Our  scholars 
and  our  leaders  are  of  the  people,  from  the  people.  The 
American  plan  is  making  us  an  intelligent  people,  as 
compared  with  the  masses  of  any  other  nation.  The 
number  of  those  indifferent  or  ignorant  is  less  in  our 
Northern  States  than  in  England,  or  Germany,  or  France. 
But  our  leadership  is  worse  than  theirs.  We  have,  for 
our  numbers,  fewer  educated  men  than  they  have  in  any 
of  these  countries.  Our  statesmen  are  but  children  by 
the  side  of  Gladstone  or   Bismarck.     We  are  all  too 


WASTE   OF   UNTRAINED    TALENT.  15 

familiar  with  the  American  type  of  "  statesman."  The 
cross-ties  of  the  railroads  which  lead  in  every  direction 
out  of  Washington  are  every  fourth  year  graven  with 
the  prints  of  his  returning  boot-heels.  He  is  the  butt 
of  our  national  jokes,  as  well  as  the  sign  of  our  national 
shame !  We  have  been  too  busy  chopping  our  trees  and 
breaking  our  prairies  to  educate  our  sons.  Thus  it 
comes,  that  in  literature,  in  science,  in  philosophy,  in 
everything  except  mechanical  invention,  American  work 
has  been  contented  to  bear  the  stamp  of  mediocrity. 

This  is  not  so  true  as  it  was  a  few  years  ago;  for  Young 
America  has  made  great  strides  toward  the  front  in  all 
these  fields  within  the  last  twenty  years.  But  it  should 
not  be  true  to  any  extent  at  all.  Nowhere  in  the  world, 
I  believe,  is  the  raw  material  out  of  which  scholars  and 
statesmen  should  be  made  so  abundant  as  in  America. 
Nowhere  is  native  intelligence  and  energy  so  plentiful; 
but  far  too  often  does  it  Weiste  itself  in  unworthy  achieve- 
ment. The  journalist  Sala  says  that  "nowhere  in  the 
world  is  so  much  talent  lying  around  loose  as  in  Amer- 
ica." In  other  words,  in  no  other  country  are  so  many 
men  of  natural  ability  who  fail  in  effectiveness  in  life  for 
want  of  proper  training. 

In  the  different  training-schools  of  California,  large 
and  small,  nearly  two  thousand  young  people  are 
gathered  together  to  prepare  for  the  profession  of  teach- 
ing. Of  these,  not  one  in  fifty  remains  in  school  long 
enough  to  secure  even  the  rudiments  of  a  liberal  educa- 
tion. Fifteen  minutes  for  dinner;  fifty  weeks  for  an 
education!  For  the  lowest  grades  of  schools,  there  are 
candidates  by  the  hundred;  but  when  one  of  our  really 
good  schools  wants  a  man  for  a  man's  work,  it  can  make 


i6      THE    VALUE  OF  HIGHER    EDUCATION. 

no  use  of  these  teachers.  We  must  search  far  and  wide 
for  the  man  to  whom  a  present  offer  of  fifty  dollars  a 
month  has  not  seemed  more  important  than  all  the  grand 
opportunities  the  scholar  may  receive.  Many  of  our 
young  teachers  are  making  a  mistake  in  this  regard. 
Every  year  the  demand  for  educated  men  and  women  in 
our  profession  is  growing.  Every  year  scores  of  half- 
educated  teachers  are  crowded  out  of  their  places  to 
make  way  for  younger  men  who  have  the  training  which 
the  coming  years  demand.  What  kind  of  a  teacher  do 
you  mean  to  be  ?  One  who  has  a  basis  of  culture,  and 
will  grow  as  the  years  go  on,  or  one  with  nothing  in 
him,  who  will  hang  on,  a  burden  to  the  profession,  until 
he  is  finally  turned  out  to  starve  ?  What  is  the  use  of 
preparing  for  certain  failure  ?  The  bird  in  the  hand  is 
not  worth  ten  in  the  bush.  You  cannot  afford  to  sell 
your  future  at  so  heavy  a  discount. 

The  general  purpose  of  public  education,  it  is  said,  is 
the  elevation  of  the  masses.  This  is  well;  but  as  the 
man  is  above  the  mass,  there  is  a  higher  aim  than  this. 
Training  of  the  individual  is  to  break  up  the  masses,  to 
draw  from  the  multitude  the  man.  We  see  a  regiment 
of  soldiers  on  parade  —  a  thousand  men;  in  dress  and 
mein  all  are  alike  —  the  mass.  To  the  sound  of  the  drum 
or  the  command  of  the  officer,  they  move  as  one  man. 
By  and  by,  in  the  business  of  war,  comes  the  cry  for  a 
man  to  lead  some  forlorn  hope,  to  do  some  deed  of 
bravery  in  the  face  of  danger.  From  the  mass  steps  the 
man.  His  training  shows  itself.  On  parade,  no  more, 
no  less  than  the  others;  he  stands  above  them  all  on  the 
day  of  trial.  So,  too,  in  other  things,  in  other  places; 
for  the  need  of  men  is  not  alone  on  the  field  of  battle. 


BREAK   UP    THE   MASSES.  17 

Some  fifty  thousand  boys  are  to-day  at  play  on  the 
fields  of  California.  Which  of  these  shall  be  the  great, 
the  good  of  California's  next  century  ?  Which  of  these 
shall  redeem  our  State  from  its  vassalage  to  the  saloon 
and  the  spoilsman  ?  Which  of  these  shall  be  a  center  of 
sweetness  and  light;  so  that  the  world  shall  say,  "  It  is 
good  to  have  lived  in  California."  Good  not  alone  for 
the  climate,  the  mountains,  the  forest,  and  the  sea,  the 
thousand  beauties  of  nature  which  make  our  State  so 
lovable;  but  good  because  life  in  CaUfornia  is  life  among 
the  best  and  truest  of  men  and  women.  This  record 
California  has  yet  to  make;  and  there  are  some  among 
you,  I  trust,  who  will  live  to  help  make  it. 

These  fifty  thousand  boys  form  a  part  of  what  will  be 
the  masses.  Let  us  train  them  as  well  as  we  can.  Let  us 
feed  them  well.  Let  us  send  them  to  school.  Let  us 
make  them  wise,  intelligent,  clean,  honest,  thrift}'.  Among 
them  here  and  there  is  the  future  leader  of  men.  Let  us 
raise  him  fi-om  the  masses,  or,  rather,  let  us  give  him  a 
chance  to  raise  himself;  for  the  pine-tree  in  the  thicket 
needs  no  outside  help  to  place  its  head  above  the  chapar- 
ral and  sumac.  To  break  up  the  masses,  that  they  may 
be  masses  no  more,  but  living  men  and  women,  is  the 
mission  of  higher  education. 

In  medicine,  America  is  still  the  paradise  of  quacks. 
In  law,  the  land  is  full  of  shysters  and  pettifoggers,  and 
doers  of  **  fine  work" ;  but  of  good  lawyers,  the  supply 
never  equals  the  demand.  In  education,  no  land  is  so 
full  as  America  of  frauds  and  shams.  The  catalogues  of 
our  schools  read  like  the  advertisements  of  our  patent 
medicines.  They  "cure  all  ills  that  flesh  is  heir  to;  one 
bottle  sufficient!"  The  name  "University"  in  America 
c 


1 8       THE    VALUE   OF  HIGHER   EDUCATION. 

is  assumed  by  the  cross-roads  academy  as  well  as  by 
Harvard  or  Johns  Hopkins.  The  name  "  Professor "  is 
applied  to  the  country  schoolmaster,  the  barber,  and  the 
manager  of  the  skating-rink.  The  bachelor's  diploma 
in  half  our  States  is  given  by  consent  of  law  to  those  who 
could  not  pass  the  examinations  of  any  decent  high 
school.  Such  diplomas  do  not  ennoble  their  holders, 
but  they  do  serve  to  bring  into  contempt  the  very  name 
of  American  graduate. 

One  of  the  besetting  sins  of  American  life  is  its  will- 
ingness to  call  very  little  things  by  very  large  names  — 
its  tolerance  of  imposition  and  fraud.  It  is  the  mission 
of  the  scholar  in  each  profession  to  combat  fraud;  to 
show  men  "  facts  amid  appearances  " ;  to  say  that  a  pop- 
gun is  a  pop-gun,  though  every  one  else  may  be  calling 
it  a  cannon!  As  our  country  grows  older,  perhaps  the 
number  of  bladders  will  diminish.  If  not,  let  us  have 
more  pins! 

What  does  the  college  do  for  the  moral,  the  religious 
training  of  the  youth?  Let  us  examine.  If  your 
college  assume  to  stand  in  loco  parentis^  with  rod  in 
hand  and  spy-glasses  on  its  nose,  it  will  not  do  much 
in  the  way  of  moral  training.  The  fear  of  punishment 
will  not  make  young  men  moral  and  religious;  still  less 
a  punishment  so  easily  evaded  as  the  discipline  of  the 
college. 

If  your  college  claims  to  be  a  reform  school,  your  pro- 
fessors detective  officers,  and  your  president  a  chief  of 
police,  the  students  will  give  them  plenty  to  do.  A  col- 
lege cannot  take  the  place  of  the  parent.  To  claim  that 
it  does  so,  is  a  mere  pretense.  It  can  cure  the  boy  of 
petty  vices  and  childish  trickery  only  by  making  him  a 


RELIGIOUS    TRAINING.  19 

man,  by  giving  him  higher  ideals,  more  serious  views 
of  life.     You  may  win  by  inspiration,  not  by  fear. 

Take  those  dozen  students,  of  whom  Agassiz  tells  us 
—  his  associates  in  the  University  of  Munich.  Do  you 
suppose  that  Dr.  DoUinger  caught  any  of  them  cheating 
on  examination  ?  Did  the  three  young  men  who  knelt 
under  the  haystack  at  Williamstown, —  the  founders  of 
our  Foreign  Missions, —  choose  the  haystack  rather  than 
the  billiard-hall,  for  fear  of  the  college  faculty  ?  ' '  Free 
should  the  scholar  be,  free  and  brave."  "The  petty 
restraints  that  may  aid  in  the  control  of  college  sneaks 
and  college  snobs  are  an  insult  to  college  men  and 
women."  And  it  is  for  the  training  of  men  and  women 
that  the  college  exists. 

So,  too,  in  religious  matters.  The  college  can  do 
much,  but  not  by  rules  and  regulations.  The  college 
will  not  make  young  men  religious  by  enforced  attend- 
ance at  church  or  prayer-meeting.  It  will  not  awaken 
the  spiritual  element  in  the  student's  nature  by  any  sys- 
tem of  demerit-marks.  This  the  college  can  do  for 
religious  culture :  It  can  strengthen  the  student  in  his 
search  for  truth.  It  can  encourage  manliness  in  him  by 
the  putting  away  of  childish  things.  Let  the  thoughts 
of  the  student  be  as  free  as  the  air.  Let  him  prove 
all  things,  and  he  will  hold  fast  to  that  which  is  good. 
Give  him  a  message  to  speak  to  other  men,  and  when 
he  leaves  your  care  you  need  fear  for  him,  not  the  woHd, 
the  flesh,  nor  the  Devil ! 

This  is  a  practical  age,  we  say,  and  we  look  askance  at 
dreams  and  ideals.  We  ask  now:  What  is  the  value  of 
education  ?  What  is  the  value  of  Christianity  ?  What  is 
the  value  of  love,  of  God,  of  morality,  of  truth,  of  beau- 


20       THE   VALUE   OF  HIGHER    EDUCATION. 

ty  ?  —  as  though  all  these  things  were  for  sale  in  our  city- 
markets,  somewhat  shop-worn  and  going  at  a  sacrifice. 

"My  son,"  says  Victor  Cherbuliez,  "my  son,  we 
ought  to  lay  up  a  stock  of  absurd  enthusiasms  in  our 
youth,  or  else  we  shall  reach  the  end  of  our  journey 
with  an  empty  heart;  for  we  lose  a  great  many  of  them 
by  the  way. " 

It  is  the  noblest  mission  of  all  higher  education,  I  be- 
lieve, to  fill  the  mind  of  the  youth  with  these  enthusiasms, 
with  noble  ideas  of  manhood,  of  work,  of  life.  It  should 
teach  him  to  feel  that  life  is  indeed  worth  living;  and 
no  one  who  leads  a  worthy  life  has  ever  for  a  moment 
doubted  this.  It  should  help  him  to  shape  his  own 
ambitions  as  to  how  a  life  may  be  made  worthy.  It 
should  help  him  to  believe  that  love,  and  friendship,  and 
faith,  and  devotion  are  things  that  really  exist,  and  are 
embodied  in  men  and  women.  He  should  learn  to  know 
these  men  and  women,  whether  of  the  present  or  of  the 
past,  and  his  life  will  become  insensibly  fashioned  after 
theirs.  He  should  form  plans  of  his  own  work  for  so- 
ciety, for  science,  for  art,  for  religion.  His  life  may  fall 
far  short  of  what  he  would  make  it;  but  a  high  ideal 
must  precede  any  worthy  achievement. 

A  conviction  or  ideal  in  life  must  be  a  determination 
to  work  and  live  toward  some  end.  It  must  express 
itself  in  action.  It  is  destructive  of  mind  and  soul  if 
an  ideal  stands  in  the  place  of  effort.  No  visions  and 
dreams  uncontrolled  by  the  will  can  be  treated  as 
independent  sources  of  knowledge  or  power. 

I  once  climbed  a  mountain  slope  in  Utah,  in  midsum- 
mer, when  every  blade  of  grass  was  burned  to  a  yellow 
crisp.     I  look  over  the  valley,  and  here  and  there  I 


LENDING   A    HAND.  21 

can  trace  a  line  of  vivid  green  across  the  fields,  running 
down  to  the  lake.  I  cannot  see  the  water,  but  I  know 
that  the  brook  is  there ;  for  the  grass  would  not  grow 
without  help.  Like  this  brook  in  the  hot  plains,  may 
be  the  life  of  the  scholar  in  the  world  of  men. 

I  look  out  over  the  struggling  men  and  women.  I 
see  the  weary  soul,  the  lost  ambitions, 

"The  haggard  face,  the  form  that  drooped  and  fainted 
In  the  fierce  race  for  wealth." 

Here  and  there  I  trace  some  line  in  life  along  which  I 
see  springing  up  all  things  good  and  gracious.  Here 
is  the  scholar's  work.  In  his  pathway  are  all  things 
beautiful  and  true  —  the  love  of  nature,  the  love  of  man, 
the  love  of  God,  For  best  of  all  the  scholar's  privileges 
is  that  of  ' '  lending  a  hand. ' '  The  scholar  travels  the 
road  of  life  well  equipped  in  all  which  can  be  helpful  to 
others.  He  may  not  travel  that  road  again  (you  remem- 
ber the  words  of  the  old  Quaker),  and  what  he  does  for 
his  neighbor  must  be  done  where  his  neighbor  is.  The 
noblest  lives  have  left  their  traces,  not  only  in  literature 
or  in  history,  but  in  the  hearts  of  men.  "  If  the  teacher 
is  to  train  others,  still  more  must  he  train  himself.  The 
teacher's  influence  depends  not  on  what  he  says,  nor  on 
what  he  does,  but  on  what  he  is.  He  cannot  be  greater 
or  nobler  than  himself  He  cannot  teach  nobly  if  he 
is  not  himself  noble. ' '  * 

Not  long  ago.  Professor  William  Lowe  Bryan  said: 
"Two  summers  since,  in  a  Southern  Indiana  country 
neighborhood,  I  came  upon  the  traces  of  a  man.  They 
were   quite  as  distinct   and   satisfactory  as  a  geologist 

•Dr.  Weldon,  Head  Master  of  Harrow. 


22       THE    VALUE   OF  HIGHER    EDUCATION. 

could  have  wished  for  in  the  case  of  a  vanished  glacier. 
A  good  many  years  had  passed  away  since  the  man  was 
there,  but  the  impression  of  his  mind  and  character  was 
still  unmistakable.  Long  ago,  when  a  boy  of  eighteen, 
with  no  special  training  and  no  extended  education,  this 
man  went  to  Jefferson  County  to  teach.  What  he  did, 
what  he  said,  what  methods  or  text-books  he  used,  what 
books  or  journals  he  read,  I  do  not  know.  But  if  you 
will  go  there  to-day,  you  will  find  in  that  community, 
among  all  classes  and  conditions  of  people,  the  most 
satisfactory  evidence  that  that  boy-teacher  was  a  man, 
honest,  sincere,  energetic,  inspiring." 

So  have  I  found,  as  I  have  gone  over  this  land  of  ours, 
traces  here  and  there  which  show  where  a  man  has  lived. 
In  greater  or  less  degree,  as  we  come  to  know  the  inner 
history  of  some  little  town,  we  may  find  that  from  some 
past  life  its  sons  and  daughters  have  drawn  thdr  inspira- 
tion; we  may  find  that  once  within  its  borders  there  lived 
a  man. 

One  word  more:  You  will  go  to  college,  for  better  or 
for  worse.  Where  shall  you  go  ?  The  answer  to  this 
is  simple.  Get  the  best  you  can.  You  have  but  one 
chance  for  a  college  education,  and  you  cannot  afford  to 
waste  that  chance  on  a  third-rate  or  fourth-rate  school. 
There  is  but  one  thing  that  can  make  a  college  strong  and 
useful,  and  that  is  a  strong  and  earnest  faculty.  All 
other  matters  without  this  are  of  less  than  no  importance. 

Buildings,  departments,  museums,  courses,  libraries, 
catalogues,  names,  numbers,  rules,  and  regulations  do 
not  make  a  university.  It  is  the  men  who  teach.  Go 
where  the  masters  are,  in  whatever  department  you 
w  fch  to  study. 


CO    TO    THE   MEN   WHO    KNOW.  23 

Look  over  this  matter  carefully;  for  it  is  important. 
Go  for  your  education  to  that  school,  in  whatever  State 
or  country,  under  whatever  name  or  control,  that  will 
serve  your  purposes  best ;  that  will  give  you  the  best 
returns  for  the  money  you  are  able  to  spend.  Do  not 
stop  with  the  middle-men.  Go  to  the  men  who  know  ; 
the  men  who  can  lead  you  beyond  the  primary  details  to 
the  thoughts  and  researches  which  are  the  work  of  the 
scholar. 

Far  more  important  than  the  question  of  what  you 
shall  study  is  the  question  of  who  shall  be  your  teachers. 
The  teacher  should  not  be  a  self-registering  phonograph 
to  put  black  marks  after  the  names  of  the  lazy  boys.  He 
should  be  a  source  of  inspiration,  leading  the  student  in 
his  department  to  the  farthest  limit  of  what  is  already 
known,  inciting  him  to  make  excursions  in  the  greater 
realms  of  the  unknown.  A  great  teacher  never  fails  to 
leave  a  great  mark  on  every  youth  with  whom  he  comes 
in  contact. 

Let  the  school  do  for  you  what  it  can  ;  and  when  you 
have  entered  upon  the  serious  duties  of  life,  let  your 
own  work  and  your  own  influence  in  the  community  be 
ever  the  strongest  plea  that  can  be  urged  in  behalf  of 
higher  education. 


II. 

THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  COLLEGE  CUR- 
RICULUM.* 

A  RECENT  writer  on  the  German  system  of  educa- 
tion, turning  aside  from  his  subject  for  a  moment's 
contemplation  of  the  American  system,  says  that  the 
most  striking  characteristic  of  the  latter  is,  simply,  its 
want  of  system.  Instead  of  being  part  of  a  definite 
whole,  well  ordered  or  ill  ordered,  as  the  case  may  be, 
each  feature  of  the  American  system  has  been  developed 
with  little  regard  to  its  relation  to  others. 

Our  colleges  are  English  in  birth  and  in  tradition;  our 
universities  caught  their  inspiration  from  Germany;  while 
our  high  schools  and  professional  schools  are  native  to 
the  soil  —  the  former  an  outgrowth  of  the  public-school 
system,  the  latter  of  commercial  enterprise.  This  confu- 
sion in  development  has  been  made  more  striking  by  our 
misapplication  of  names,  an  example  of  which  is  seen 
in  our  indiscriminate  use  of  the  terms  "college"  and 
"university."  In  many  a  so-called  "  college "  in  Amer- 
ica the  chief  work  done  is  the  teaching  of  the  elements 
of  grammar  and  arithmetic.  The  ' '  university  idea ' ' 
is  often  regarded  as  fully  met  by  the  addition  to  such  a 
college  of  a  normal  school,  a  professor  or  two  in  law  or 
theology,  and  a  self-supporting  ' '  college  of  music. ' ' 

*  President's  Address,  College  Association  of  Indiana,  1887;  reprinted  from 
"  Science  Sketches,"  (first  edition;  A.  C.  McCIurg  &  Co.,  Chicago,  1888) . 

24 


THE     AMERICAN    COLLEGE.  25 

Yet,  in  spite  of  all  eccentricities  in  name  or  form,  we 
can  recognize  the  existence  of  a  certain  definite  type  of 
school,  which  we  may  call  the  "American  college." 
There  are  many  variations  in  this  type  of  school  —  vari- 
ations due  to  geographical  position,  to  the  excess  or 
deficiency  in  denominational  zeal,  or  to  the  exigencies  of 
the  struggle  for  existence.  For  the  fiercest  conflicts 
of  the  average  American  college  have  not  been  with  the 
black  giant  Ignorance,  but  with  the  traditional  wolf  at 
the  door.  In  other  words,  this  new  country  has  not 
been  liberal  in  its  support  of  higher  education;  and, 
moreover,  the  funds  available  for  this  purpose  have  been 
used  for  planting,  rather  than  for  watering  —  to  found  a 
multitude  of  weak  schools,  rather  than  to  make  a  few 
schools  strong.  There  have  been  several  reasons  why 
this  is  so,  and  there  are  some  few  reasons  why  it  has 
been  well  that  it  is  so;  but  these  questions  I  do  not  care 
to  discuss  now.  The  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest 
can  be  depended  on  to  rectify  sooner  or  later  all  mistakes 
of  this  kind.  Suffice  it  to  say,  that  we  recognize  the 
existence  of  the  American  college,  and  that  this  college 
possesses  a  more  or  less  definite  college  curriculum.  Of 
the  changes  in  this  curriculum  I  wish  now  to  speak. 

I  shall  not  try  to  follow  out  in  detail  its  history  prior 
to  the  time  when  its  germs  were  brought  to  us  from 
England  in  the  landing  of  the  Pilgrims.  We  can  go  back 
in  England  to  the  time  when  the  philosophy  of  Aristotle 
constituted  the  college  course.  Then  the  entire  cur- 
riculum was  taught  by  a  single  teacher,  the  man  of 
imiversal  knowledge.  This  teacher,  for  the  most  part, 
gave  his  instruction  by  dictation.  The  students  noted 
down  the  contents  of  old  books,  which  the  master  him- 


26  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  COLLEGE  CURRICULUM. 

self  had  copied  before;  the  place  of  the  teacher  was 
simply  that  of  a  medium  of  communication  between  the 
ancient  manuscripts  and  their  later  duplicates. 

With  the  revival  of  learning  came  the  advent  of  the 
study  of  Latin  as  a  language  having  a  literature,  and, 
later,  tlie  study  of  Greek,  both  Latin  and  Greek,  as  lit- 
erary studies,  being  considered  extremely  dangerous  as 
well  as  heretical  at  the  time  of  their  introduction  into  the 
curriculum.  Both  were  then  resisted  by  the  full  force 
of  the  conservative  party  of  the  day.  After  the  revival 
of  learning,  came  about  with  time  the  English  college 
curriculum,  with  its  tripos,  or  three  pedestals,  of  Greek, 
Latin,  and  mathematics.  Of  this  the  American  curricu- 
lum has  been  a  lineal  descendant. 

The  American  college  curriculum  at  the  time  when 
most  of  us  became  acquainted  with  it  was  a  very  definite 
thing,  time-honored,  and  commanding  a  certain  respect 
from  its  correspondence  with  the  theory  on  which  it  was 
based.  Its  fundamental  idea  was  discipline  of  the  mind. 
Its  mode  of  effecting  this  was,  in  large  part,  by  shutting 
the  student's  eyes  to  the  distracting  and  inconsequential 
present,  and  fixing  his  gaze  on  that  which  was  great  and 
good  and  hard  to  understand  in  the  past  The  main 
work  of  the  course  consisted  of  drill  in  grammar  and 
mathematics,  and  the  results  of  this  training  were  bound 
together  by  a  final  exposition  at  the  hands  of  the  presi- 
dent of  such  of  the  speculations  of  philosophers  as 
seemed  to  him  safe  and  substantial.  This  work  lasted  — 
for  reasons  so  old  as  to  be  long  since  forgotten — just 
four  years,  and  it  was  preceded  by  a  certain  very  defi- 
nite amount  of  drill,  of  much  the  same  kind,  which  was 
regarded  as  a  necessary  preliminary  to  the  later  work. 


THE    CLASSICAL    COURSE.  27 

Whatever  may  be  our  opinion  as  to  the  desirability  of 
such  a  course  for  ourselves,  or  for  our  sons  or  daughters, 
it  is  impossible  not  to  regard  the  old-time  classical  course 
with  a  feeling  of  respect.  It  was  based  on  a  theory  of 
education,  and  its  promoters  were  loyal  to  this  theory. 
If  only  the  boys  for  whom  its  pigeon-holes  were  arranged 
could  have  been  of  uniform  size  and  quality,  the  system 
would  have  been  perfect.  That  it  was  not  quite  perfect 
was  clearly  the  fault  of  human  nature,  which  furnished  a 
very  variable  article  of  boy  for  the  educators  to  work 
upon,  and  caused  them  to  reach  by  uniform  processes 
widely  different  results.  What  these  variations  were  is 
well  known  to  us,  and  needs  no  explanation.  We  know 
that  there  are  some  boys  whose  natural  food  is  the 
Greek  root.  There  are  others  whose  dreams  expand  in 
conic  sections,  and  whose  longings  for  the  finite  or  the 
infinite  always  follow  certain  paraboloid  or  ellipsoid 
curves.  There  are  some  to  whom  the  turgid  sentences 
of  Cicero  are  the  poetry  of  utterance;  and  there  are 
others  who,  with  none  of  these  tastes,  grow  and  blossom 
in  the  sunlight  of  comradery,  undisturbed  by  the  harass- 
ing influences  of  books  and  bookish  men.  To  all  these 
kinds  of  students  this  old-time  classical  course  brought 
satisfaction,  and  the  days  they  spent  in  Princeton,  or 
Harvard,  or  Amherst  were  the  brightest  of  their  lives. 
Such  have  rarely  failed  to  try  to  provide  for  their  chil- 
dren the  same  training  which  they  found  so  satisfying 
to  themselves. 

But  there  were  other  students,  not  less  fond  of  study, 
who  were  resdess  under  these  conditions.  There  were 
some  to  whom  the  structure  of  the  oriole's  nest  was  more 
marvelous,  as  well  as  more  poetical,  than  the  structure 


28   E  VOL  UTION  OF  THE  COLLEGE  CURRICUL UM. 

of  an  ode  of  Horace.  There  were  others  who  found  in 
modern  history,  or  literature,  or  philosophy  an  inspira- 
tion which  they  did  not  draw  from  that  which  is  old.  By 
the  side  of  this  inspiration,  the  grammatical  drill  of  the 
schools  seemed  a  lifeless  thing.  And  so  it  has  happened 
that  many  whom  we  now  regard  as  great  in  our  literature 
or  our  science  were  held  in  low  esteem  in  the  colleges  in 
which  they  graduated  —  if  indeed  they  ever  graduated 
at  all.  For  the  scale  of  marks  connected  with  the  col- 
lege curriculum  took  little  account  of  the  soul  of  man, 
but  only  of  the  docility  and  regularity — virtues  of  them- 
selves of  no  mean  order  —  with  which  the  college  disci- 
pline was  taken.  And  as  these  qualities  are  not  alone 
the  qualities  which  win  success,  either  real  or  spurious, 
in  after  life,  it  came  to  be  believed  that  college  honors 
meant  future  failure  —  that  the  college  valedictorian  was 
the  man  who  was  never  to  be  heard  of  again;  and  in  this 
popular  error,  easily  disproved  by  statistics,  there  was 
just  enough  of  truth  to  keep  it  from  being  forgotten. 

No  doubt  the  ancient  classical  course  was  a  powerful 
agency  for  culture  to  many  —  to  most  students,  perhaps, 
who  came  within  its  influence.  But  it  was  not  so  to  all. 
Culture  is  an  elusive  thing,  and  the  machinery  which  will 
secure  it  for  you  may  have  no  such  eflTect  on  me.  So, 
among  the  students  of  the  old  regime,  some  never  found 
culture,  and  some  found  it  only  in  a  surreptitious  study 
of  the  world  outside.  Complaints  were  not  wanting  that 
in  this  curriculum  of  Latin,  Greek,  mathematics,  and  a 
varnish  of  philosophy,  not  all  the  studies  pursued  were 
useful  studies.  Much  of  this  complaint  was  unjust;  for 
higher  education  is  not  learning  a  trade,  nor  is  its  pur- 
pose to  enable  its  possessor  to  get  a  living.     But  some 


CULTURE   AND    MASTERY.  29 

of  this  complaint  has  been  just.  No  part  of  a  man's 
education  is  of  much  value  to  him,  unless  it  is  in  some 
way  concerned  with  his  future  growth.  Thousands  of 
students  never  look  at  a  Latin  book  after  leaving  col- 
lege. This  matters  nothing,  if  the  skill  they  have 
acquired  in  reading  Latin  gives  them  greater  mastery 
over  their  future  study  or  a  deeper  insight  into  the  prob- 
lems of  life.  This  matters  much,  if  this  knowledge  h?s 
in  no  wise  given  either  insight  or  mastery.  For  in  such 
case  a  knowledge  of  Horace  and  Homer  would  be  as 
useless  as  the  learning  by  heart  of  the  laws  of  the  Medes 
and  the  Persians  or  an  enumeration  in  order  of  all  the 
kings  of  Shanghai  or  Yvetot.  The  tree  of  knowledge 
is  known  by  its  fruits.  "Culture,"  says  Judge  O.  W. 
Holmes,  "in  the  form  of  fruitiess  knowledge,  I  utterly 
abhor." 

Now,  to  those  who  found  culture,  the  college  course 
had  served  its  end;  to  others,  it  had  not.  It  was  good 
or  bad,  not  in  itself,  but  in  its  results.  It  is  idle  for  us  to 
say :  "  It  is  sufficient  for  all " ;  "  It  is  sufficient  for  none. ' ' 
The  discussion  of  these  rival  theses  has  not  helped  much 
in  the  solution  of  the  educational  problem. 

Emerson  says:  "The  ancient  languages,  with  great 
beauty  of  structure,  contain  wonderful  remains  of  genius, 
which  draw,  and  always  will  draw,  certain  like-minded 
men,  Greek  men,  and  Roman  men,  in  all  countries,  to 
their  study ;  but  by  a  wonderful  drowsiness  of  usage 
they  had  exacted  the  study  of  all  men.  Once  (say  two 
centuries  ago)  Latin  and  Greek  had  a  strict  relation  to 
all  the  science  and  culture  there  was  in  Europe,  and 
mathematics  had  a  momentary  importance  at  some  era 
of  physical  science.     These  things  became  stereotyped 


so   E  VOL  UTION  OF  THE  COLLEGE  CURRJCUL  UM. 

as  education,  as  the  manner  of  men  is.  But  the  good 
spirit  never  cared  for  the  colleges,  and  though  all  men 
and  boys  were  now  drilled  in  Latin,  Greek,  and  mathe- 
matics, it  had  quite  left  these  shells  high  and  dry  on  the 
beach,  and  was  now  creating  and  feeding  other  matters 
at  other  ends  of  the  world." 

Thus,  as  the  years  went  on,  other  sources  of  culture 
became  more  and  more  emphatic  in  their  claims.  The 
workers  in  the  various  fields  of  science,  each  year  be- 
coming more  numerous  and  more  active,  opened  out 
great  vistas  of  the  works  of  God,  and  he  who  had  seen 
nothing  of  these  might  well  have  his  claims  to  culture 
doubted.  Philology,  history,  philosopJiy  other  than  that 
stamped  with  the  approval  of  the  safe  old  masters,  each 
put  in  its  claims,  as  also  the  vast  wealth  of  the  literatures 
of  modern  Europe.  A  citizen  of  the  republic  must  know 
something  of  the  laws  which  govern  national  prosperity, 
and  a  teacher  of  the  people  should  know  something  of 
the  theory  according  to  which  people  are  taught.  When 
these  subjects  are  left  out  of  the  college  curriculum,  the 
clamor  for  their  admittance  becomes  unbearably  loud.  If 
all  are  admitted,  the  same  curriculum  becomes  like  an 
American  horse-car,  with  standing  room  only,  and  no 
space  to  turn  around. 

What  shall  the  colleges  do  ?  Shut  out  these  subjects 
they  cannot;  for  to  exclude  all  modern  studies  and  mod- 
ern ideas,  to  step  out  of  the  current  of  modern  life,  is 
practically  to  exclude  all  students.  Rightly  or  wrongly, 
the  students  want  these  things,  and  sooner  or  later  the 
American  college  must  give  what  the  students  want.  The 
supply  must  meet  the  demand,  or  there  will  be  no  de- 
mand.    It  is  possible,  although  by  no  means  sure,  that 


THE    VALUE    OF  DEGREES.  31 

we,  as  professors,  know  what  is  good  for  the  student 
better  than  the  student  does  himself;  but  unless  we  can 
convince  him  of  that,  we  must  let  him  have,  to  a  great 
extent,  his  own  way  as  to  what  his  studies  shall  be.  We 
can  see  that  he  does  his  work  well,  and  we  can  help  him 
in  many  ways;  but  the  direction  of  his  efforts  must  in 
the  end  rest  with  him. 

The  colleges  of  America  stand  in  a  different  position 
in  this  regard  from  similar  schools  in  England  or  Ger- 
many. These  last  are  parts  of  a  definite  system.  Their 
financial  support  is  such  that  there  is  no  need  of  paying 
any  special  attention  to  popular  demands  if  these  demands 
are  deemed  theoretically  undesirable.  Moreover,  the  col- 
lege degree  in  England,  and  its  equivalent  in  Germany, 
form  a  passport  of  admission  to  social,  educational,  or 
political  privileges  inaccessible  to  tiie  man  without  this 
degree.  Hence,  entrance  to  the  college,  or  gymnasium, 
or  the  university  is,  among  the  higher-educated  classes 
in  these  countries,  a  matter  of  course  to  a  much  greater 
extent  than  can  be  the  case  in  America.  The  Bachelor' s 
degree  in  America,  or  even  the  Doctor's  degree,  carries 
no  privileges  of  any  sort  worth  the  name.  And  in  the 
long  run  it  is  well  for  America  that  it  does  not.  Very 
few  of  our  students  would  work  for  a  degree  if  it  were 
believed  that  the  tide  were  all  they  got.  Thus  it  comes 
about  that  in  America  the  average  student  goes  to  col- 
lege or  is  sent  to  college  for  the  help  to  be  got  from 
study,  rather  than  for  the  sake  of  graduation.  And  he 
must  be  convinced,  or  his  parents  must  be  convinced, 
that  this  good  is  a  real  good,  or  he  will  not  seek  it.  Thus 
the  difference  in  the  conditions  under  which  our  colleges 
work  has  tended  to  modify  and  modernize  the  curriculum 


32    E  VOL  UTION  OF  THE  COL  LEGE  CURRICUL  UM. 

more  rapidly  than  has  been  the  case  in  the  corresponding 
schools  in  Europe. 

Many  devices  have  been  adopted  for  dealing  with  the 
modern  studies.  Some  have  admitted  them  as  extras, 
or,  in  the  expressive  language  of  a  New  York  college 
president,  as  "side  fixings,"  reserving  the  old-time 
tripos  as  the  solid  part  of  the  scholastic  meal.  But 
no  matter  how  little  a  hold  these  modern  studies  had, 
their  presence  has  weakened  the  force  of  the  old-time 
discipline.  It  is  a  law  of  physics  that  two  bodies  can- 
not occupy  the  same  space,  even  though  one  of  them 
be  badly  squeezed.  And  these  subjects  will  submit  to 
squeezing  no  better  than  the  others.  So  part  of  the  old 
course  must  be  crowded  out  and  part  of  the  new  must  be 
admitted  on  terms  of  more  or  less  perfect  equality  with 
the  former,  or  else  some  degree  of  selection  must  be  per- 
mitted, that  students  may  choose  between  new  and  new 
or  between  new  and  old. 

Another  conceivable  arrangement  would  be  to  omit 
none  of  the  old  work,  but  to  lengthen  the  course,  with 
each  study  added  to  the  curriculum  until  each  could 
receive  a  proper  share  of  the  student's  attention.  But 
this  cannot  well  be  done.  Four  years  is  the  fixed  length 
of  the  American  college  course;  and  this  being  an  arbi- 
trary thing,  with  no  sort  of  reason  for  it,  there  can  be  no 
successful  argument  against  it.  Besides,  we  live  in  hur- 
rying times;  and  to  our  students  time  is  money,  and  the 
only  money  some  of  the  best  of  them  have.  To  the 
majority  of  those  reached  by  our  colleges,  even  the  tra- 
ditional four  years  seems  a  long  time  to  spend  in  school 
after  reaching  manhood. 

For  a  time,  in  various  ways,  it  was  sought  to  harmo- 


THE    PATCHWORK   STAGE.  33 

nize  the  new  education  with  the  old.  But  the  average 
American  college  has  finally  adjusted  itself  to  a  second 
phase  in  the  history  of  the  curriculum,  which,  for  con- 
venience, I  may  call  "the  patchwork"  stage.  In  this 
arrangement  most  of  the  higher  mathematics  has  been 
crowded  out,  the  Greek  has  been  shortened,  and  the 
Latin  also;  while  other  subjects,  in  greater  or  less 
amounts,  have  been  more  or  less  grudgingly  admitted. 
The  amount  and  kind  of  these  subjects  are  rarely  deter- 
mined by  any  prearranged  plan  or  in  accordance  with 
any  sort  of  definite  theory  of  education.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  each  college  has  a  certain  number  of  professors  — 
this  determined  by  the  board  of  trustees,  in  accordance 
with  real  or  imaginary  needs  of  the  college,  or  with  the 
real  or  imaginary  claims  of  candidates  for  recognition. 
Then,  in  the  faculty  meetings,  each  one  of  these  profes- 
sors claims  what  he  wants,  and  receives  what  he  can  get. 
in  accordance  with  the  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest 
and  the  rule  of  the  majority.  Thus  the  curriculum  in 
each  college  becomes  the  resultant  of  many  forces  in  a 
condition  of  unstable  equilibrium.  It  is  altered,  not  in 
accordance  with  the  educational  needs  of  the  students,  but 
when  one  professor  gives  place  in  the  faculty  to  another 
more  or  less  energetic  or  clamorous  than  he. 

Occasionally  in  these  patchwork  courses  of  study,  the 
traces  of  some  master-hand  is  visible  —  some  method  in 
its  madness, —  which  shows  that  somebody  has  tried  to 
work  out  an  idea.  But  this  is  rarely  so,  I  think;  and  in 
the  arrangement  of  most  courses  of  study  nothing  higher 
has  been  thought  of  than  expediency  and  the  exigencies 
of  compromise.  From  the  struggle  between  the  repre- 
sentatives of  rival  subjects  in  an  overloaded  course  has 


34   E  VOL  UTION  OF  THE  COLLEGE  CURRICUL  UM. 

come  about,  by  way  of  compromise,  the  establishment 
of  different  courses  of  study,  in  each  of  which  it  is  as- 
sumed that  some  scholastic  faction  will  have  the  ascend- 
ency. In  some  colleges  these  various  courses  have  been 
put  on  an  exact  equality;  but  in  most  cases  a  more 
or  less  positive  pressure  has  been  brought  to  bear  in 
favor  of  the  classical  course,  and  especially  away  from 
the  sciences.  This  is  well,  I  think;  for  in  most  of  our 
colleges  the  instruction  in  science  is  still  absurdly  inade- 
quate, and  wholly  valueless  for  the  main  end  of  scientific 
instruction  —  the  training  of  the  judgment  through  its 
exercise  on  first-hand  knowledge.  Wherever  science 
is  yet  in  the  meshes  of  bookishness  it  is  best  that  stu- 
dents should  be  turned  away  from  it.  Wherever  its 
limbs  are  free  it  will  hold  its  own,  whatever  the  pressure 
from  those  who  do  not  value  it  as  a  factor  in  education. 
In  other  words,  a  competent  teacher  of  science  need 
never  complain  of  obstacles  in  his  way ;  for  the  odds  are 
all  on  his  side.  The  same  thing  is  true,  I  believe,  of  a 
competent  teacher  in  any  other  department.  A  growing 
man  incites  growth;  but  even  mold  will  not  grow  on  a 
fossil.  Some  fifteen  years  ago  I  heard  a  college  president 
boast  that  although  his  college  had  two  other  courses, 
yet  three-fourths  of  his  students  had  been  kept  in  the 
classical  course.  My  question  was:  "What  sort  of 
teaching  have  you  in  science?"  There  was  nothing 
worth  speaking  of;  only  husks  which  the  swine  would 
not  eat,  and  the  most  hungry  student  could  not. 

As  I  have  said,  I  do  not  think  that  the  average  college 
curriculum,  as  we  have  known  it  in  this  second  stage,  is 
the  result  of  any  sort  of  theory  of  education,  of  any 
appreciation  of  the  relative  value  of  studies,  or  of  any 


POWER     THROUGH   CONCENTRATION.        35 

thought  as  to  the  best  order  in  which  such  subjects  could 
be  arranged.  I  have  myself  taken  part  in  the  prepara- 
tion of  too  many  such  courses  to  have  much  respect  for 
them.  They  are  simply  the  results  of  an  attempt  to 
put  a  maximum  of  topics  into  a  minimum  of  terms  —  to 
squeeze  ten  years  of  subjects  into  four  years  of  time. 
The  predominance  of  one  group  of  subjects  in  a  course 
reflects  the  predominance  of  some  professor  in  that  line 
of  work.  The  idea  of  discipline,  more  or  less  prominent 
in  the  lower  years,  is  usually  forgotten  entirely  in  the 
Junior  and  Senior  years.  The  idea  of  the  German  schools, 
that  the  source  of  all  power  is  concentration, — or,  as  Em- 
erson expresses  it,  ' '  The  one  prudence  in  life  is  concen- 
tration; the  one  evil,  dissipation," — was  wholly  aban- 
doned. The  theory  arose  that  a  college  is  not  a  place 
for  thorough  work  of  any  sort.  Its  purpose  is  to  give 
a  broad  and  well-rounded  culture;  to  train  men  to  "stand 
four-square  to  every  wind  that  blows," — such  a  culture 
as  comes  from  a  slight  knowledge  of  many  things,  ac- 
companied by  thoroughness  in  nothing.  Indeed,  the 
desire  of  the  student  to  know  some  one  thing  well  was 
characterized  as  * '  undue  specialization, ' '  and  every  effort 
was  made  to  induce  the  student  to  turn  with  equal  eager- 
ness from  study  to  study  —  to  physics,  logic,  Greek,  or 
histor}^ — equally  interested,  equally  superficial,  in  each. 
The  study  of  the  text-book  was  exalted,  and  a  subject 
was  said  to  be  completed  when  its  alphabet  and  a  few 
preliminary  definitions  were  more  or  less  perfectly  mem- 
orized. Thus  it  came  about  that  the  average  student 
regarded  all  studies  with  equal  indifference.  If  a  mo- 
mentary spark  of  interest  was  evoked,  it  must  fade  out 
in  a  few  days,  as  the  subject  in  question  gave  place  to 


56    E  VOL  UTION  OF  THE  COLLEGE  CURRICUL  UM. 

some  other.  The  procession  moved  in  haste,  and  the 
student  could  not  loiter  if  he  kept  his  place  in  the  line. 

It  was  said  in  justification  of  this  course  of  study,  that 
the  function  of  the  college  is  to  offer  a  taste  of  all  sorts 
of  knowledge.  The  student  could  try  all,  and  select 
that  which  he  liked  best  as  the  future  work  of  his  life. 
Thoroughness  is  for  men,  not  boys,  and  it  is  a  part  of 
life-work  rather  than  of  school  discipline.  But  every  in- 
fluence of  the  college  was  away  from  this  end.  The  value 
of  persistent  study  was  never  made  known  to  the  stu- 
dent. His  professors  were  not  specialists.  They  knew 
nothing  from  first-hand,  and  they  undervalued  in  all 
ways  the  power  which  comes  from  knowing  what  one 
knows.  So  they  taught  only  definitions,  and  classifica- 
tions, and  names,  and  dates,  and  scrap-work  generally. 
There  was  little  temptation  to  study;  for  the  business  of 
the  professor  was  repetition,  not  investigation.  It  was 
in  reference  to  such  work  as  this  that  Agassiz  said  of 
Harvard  College,  some  twenty  years  ago,  that  it  was  no 
university — "only  a  respectable  high  school,  where  they 
taught  the  dregs  of  learning."  A  candidate  for  a  chair 
in  an  Illinois  college  demanded  of  the  board  of  trustees 
that  he  must  be  allowed  some  time  for  study.  He  was 
not  elected;  for  the  board  said  that  they  wanted  no  man 
who  had  to  study  his  lessons.  They  wanted  a  professor 
who  knew  already  all  that  he  had  to  teach.  But  a  man 
contented  with  what  he  has  learned  from  others  can 
never  be  a  great  teacher.  Only  a  man  who  has  himself 
come  into  contact  with  nature  at  first-hand  can  lead 
others  in  the  search  for  truth. 

The  true  teacher,  Dr.  Coulter  tells  us,  should  be  "an 
authority  in  the  subject  of  his  department,  not  a  local 


THE  INSPIRING  TEACHER.  37 

authority —  any  chariatan  can  be  that,  —  but  one  among 
his  fellows.  Such  a  man, ' '  he  continues,  ' '  will  have  power 
enough  to  be  productive.  The  notion  of  a  teacher  as 
one  whose  whole  business  is  that  of  a  pump,  simply  to 
be  pumped  full  from  some  reservoir,  that  he  may  fill  the 
little  pitchers  held  up  under  his  nose,  may  be  true,  but 
it  is  dreadfully  belittling.  He  should  rather  be  a  peren- 
nial spring,  where  refreshing  waters  are  constantly  bub- 
bling forth,  a  center  and  source  of  supply.  The  man 
who  has  neither  power  nor  inclination  to  work  in  his  own 
department,  not  only  demonstrates  his  unfitness  for  teach- 
ing, but  loses  a  great  source  of  inspiration  to  his  pupils. 
Imagine  the  difference  between  two  teachers  before  a 
class;  one  carefully  crammed  with  second-hand  informa- 
tion which  he  is  there  to  impart;  the  other  in  the  flush 
and  fire  of  his  own  thought  and  work,  stepping  aside  a 
moment,  as  an  artist,  with  palette  and  brushes  in  hand, 
to  explain  the  beauties  of  some  great  picture  which  he  is 
painting.  The  one  is  a  taskmaster,  the  other  an  inspira- 
tion." 

I  am  well  aware  that  there  is  a  cant  of  investigation, 
as  of  religion  and  of  all  other  good  things.  Germany, 
for  example,  is  full  of  young  men  who  set  forth  to 
investigate,  not  because  they  "are  called  to  explore 
truth,"  but  because  research  is  the  popular  fad,  and 
inroads  into  new  fields  the  prerequisite  to  promotion. 
And  so  they  burrow  into  every  corner  in  science,  phil- 
ology, philosophy,  and  history,  and  produce  their  petty 
results  in  as  automatic  a  fashion  as  if  they  were  so  many 
excavating  machines.  Real  investigators  are  born,  not 
made,  and  this  uninspired  digging  into  old  roots  and 
"  Urquellen  "  bears  the  same  relation  to  the  work  of  the 


38   E  VOL  UTION  OF  THE  COLLEGE  CURRICULUM. 

real  investigators  that  the  Latin  verses  of  Rugby  and 
Eton  bear  to  Virgil  and  Horace.  Nevertheless,  it  is  true 
that  no  second-hand  man  was  ever  a  great  teacher.  I 
very  much  doubt  if  any  really  great  investigator  was  ever 
a  poor  teacher.  How  could  he  be  so  ?  The  very  pres- 
ence of  Asa  Gray  was  an  inspiration  to  students  of  botany 
for  years  after  he  had  left  the  classroom.  Such  a  man 
leaves  the  stamp  of  his  greatness  on  every  student  who 
comes  within  the  range  of  his  influence. 

One  vice  of  the  patchwork  system  is  its  constant  im- 
plication that  when,  after  a  few  weeks,  a  study  is  dropped, 
it  is  thereby  completed, — as  though  any  subject  could 
be  completed  in  a  college  course!  For  the  first  term  or 
the  first  year  spent  in  the  study  of  any  subject  whatever, 
cannot  give  that  subject.  It  gives  only  the  elements  of 
it,  the  dregs  of  it,  the  juiceless  skeleton,  on  which  future 
work  must  add  the  flesh  and  blood.  Culture  does  not 
consist  in  the  knowledge  of  any  particular  subject  or  set 
of  subjects,  nor  is  it  the  result  of  any  order  or  method 
by  which  such  studies  are  taken.  Its  essential  feature  is 
in  the  attitude  which  its  possessor  holds  toward  the  world 
and  toward  the  best  that  has  been  or  can  be  thought  or 
done  in  it.  Its  central  quality  is  growth.  The  student 
gets  nutriment  from  what  he  digests.  "A  cultivated 
woman,"  says  a  wise  teacher  of  women,  "  can  afford  to 
be  ignorant  of  a  great  many  things,  but  she  must  never 
stop  growing."  Just  so  with  the  cultivated  man.  And 
to  the  young  man  or  young  woman  who  would  grow, 
there  is  no  agency  so  effective  as  the  influence  of  a  great 
teacher.  ' '  Under  and  around  and  above  all  mere 
acquirements,"  says  the  writer  whom  I  have  just 
quoted,    ' '  is  this  subtle  infection  of  character,  making 


''LOUIS  AGASSIZ;    TEACHER."  39 

the  essence  of  the  higher  education  as  different  from 
mere  erudition  as  the  fresh  smell  of  the  tender  grape  is 
from  sheepskin. '  *  The  school  of  all  schools  in  America 
which  has  had  the  greatest  influence  on  American  scien- 
tific teaching  was  held  in  an  old  barn  on  an  uninhabited 
island  some  eighteen  miles  from  the  shore.  It  lasted 
barely  three  months,  and  in  effect  it  had  but  one  teacher. 
The  school  at  Penikese  existed  in  the  personal  presence 
of  Agassiz;  and  when  he  died,  it  vanished. 

The  final  theory  of  the  patchwork  stage  of  the  curric- 
ulum has  been,  as  I  have  said,  that  of  breadth  of  culture. 
The  student  should  possess  the  elements  of  everything, 
that  no  part  of  the  world  should  be  a  sealed  book,  that 
no  part  of  his  mind  should  be  developed  at  the  ex- 
pense of  any  other.  But  the  result  was,  in  a  general 
way,  oftener  confusion  than  culture.  The  bed-rock  of 
the  mind  was  never  reached.  So  far  as  mental  training 
was  concerned,  almost  every  result  of  this  curriculum 
was  distinctly  inferior  to  that  secured  by  the  old  classical 
course.  In  broadening  and  modernizing  the  curriculum, 
its  sharpness  as  an  implement  was  lost.  The  only  real 
gain  in  the  change,  according  to  Professor  Bain,  has  been 
' '  the  relaxation  of  the  grip  of  classicism. ' '  Another  was, 
perhaps,  that  many  who  got  nothing  from  the  old  course 
could,  with  the  right  kind  of  teachers,  get  something  from 
this.  But  a  criticism  I  once  heard  at  one  of  our  college 
exhibitions  was  still  pertinent  as  to  most  of  the  work 
done  by  either  professor  or  student  under  this  regime: 
' '  What  the  boys  want  is  to  plow  a  little  deeper.  There 
is  nothing  like  subsoiling. ' ' 

From  the  second  to  the  third  stage  in  its  history  the 
curriculum   of  the  American   college  is  now  passing. 


40  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  COLLEGE  CURRICULUM. 

This  is  marked  by  the  advent  of  the  elective  system.  It 
is  impossible  to  study  everything,  or  even  many  things,  in 
four  years.  Thoroughness  of  any  sort  is  incompatible 
with  the  so-called  breadth  of  culture  characteristic  of  the 
patchwork  era.  True  breadth  of  culture  comes  from 
breadth  of  life,  and  four  years  in  college  cannot  give  it. 
The  elective  system,  when  carried  out  in  its  entirety, 
involves  the  following  elements:  (i)  A  substantial  and 
thorough  course  of  mental  drill,  preparatory  to  the  col- 
lege course, — this  course  being  measured  by  its  effect  on 
the  student's  powers  of  study  and  of  observation,  not  by 
the  amount  of  grammar,  algebra,  and  rhetoric  which  has 
been  crammed  into  his  head;  (2)  the  placing  of  all  sub- 
jects taught  in  the  college  course  on  an  equality,  so  far 
as  the  degree  is  concerned. 

The  theory  on  which  this  system  is  based  may  be 
briefly  stated  as  this:  No  two  students  require  exactiy 
the  same  line  of  work  in  order  that  their  time  in  college 
may  be  spent  to  the  best  advantage.  The  college  stu- 
dent is  the  best  judge  of  his  own  needs,  or,  at  any  rate, 
he  can  arrange  his  work  for  himself  better  than  it  can  be 
done  beforehand  by  any  committee  or  by  any  consensus 
of  educational  philosophers.  The  student  may  make 
mistakes  in  this,  as  he  may  elsewhere  in  much  more 
important  things  in  life;  but  here,  as  elsewhere,  he  must 
bear  the  responsibility  of  these  mistakes.  The  develop- 
ment of  this  sense  of  responsibility  is  one  of  the  most 
effective  agencies  the  college  has  to  promote  the  moral 
culture  of  the  student.  It  is  better  for  the  student  him- 
self that  he  should  sometimes  make  mistakes  than  that 
he  should  throughout  his  work  be  arbitrarily  directed  by 
others.     Freedom  is  as  essential  to  scholarship  as  to 


FREEDOM   IN    SCHOLARSHIP.  41 

manhood.  Not  long  since,  I  met  a  young  German 
scholar,  a  graduate  of  a  Prussian  gymnasium,  who  has 
enrolled  himself  as  a  student  of  English  in  an  American 
college.  To  him  the  free  air  of  the  American  school  was 
its  one  good  thing.  It  develops  a  self-reliant  manhood 
in  the  youth  at  an  age  at  which  the  student  of  the  gym- 
nasium is  yet  in  leading-strings.  In  furnishing  the  best 
of  mental  training  in  certain  fixed  and  narrow  lines,  the 
German  student  is  deprived  of  that  strength  which  comes 
from  self-help  and  individual  responsibility.  It  is  no 
mere  accident  that  the  need  of  severe  college  discipline 
to  guard  against  the  various  forms  of  traditional  college 
mischief  has  steadily  declined  with  the  advent  of  freedom 
of  choice  in  study. 

The  elective  system,  too,  enables  the  student  to  bring 
himself  into  contact  with  the  best  teachers, —  a  matter 
vastiy  more  important  than  that  he  should  select  the  best 
studies.  And  this  system,  therefore,  involves  a  not  un- 
healthy competition  among  the  instructors  themselves. 
Incompetent,  superficial,  or  fossilized  men  will  be  crowded 
out  or  frozen  out,  and  the  law  of  the  survival  of  the 
fittest  will  rule  in  the  college  faculties  as  elsewhere  in 
nature. 

The  elective  system  has  been  adopted  in  greater  or  less 
degree  by  most  of  our  leading  colleges;  while  there  are 
now  very  few  schools,  large  or  small,  which  do  not  make 
some  provision  for  elective  studies.  That  some  degree 
of  freedom  of  choice  in  higher  education  is  desirable,  no 
one  now  questions.  The  main  differences  of  opinion 
relate  to  the  proportion  which  these  elective  studies  ought 
to  bear  to  those  which  are  absolutely  required,  and  to  the 
age  or  degree  of  advancement  at  which  election  is  safe;  for 


42    E  VOL  m ION  OF  THE  COLLEGE  CURRICUL  UM. 

no  one  advocates  freedom  of  choice  from  infancy.  There 
is  no  such  thing  as  a  perfect  curriculum,  and  all  college 
courses  must  represent  in  some  degree  a  compromise 
among  varying  influences,  or  else  an  adaptation  to  the 
needs  of  a  certain  class  of  students  to  the  exclusion  of 
others.  All  systems  are  liable  to  abuse;  and  as  there 
have  been  many  students  who  made  a  farce  of  the  classi- 
cal course,  or  who  made  it  a  mere  excuse  for  four  years 
spent  in  boating  or  billiards,  or  in  social  pleasures,  so  in 
the  same  way  can  a  farce  be  made  of  the  freedom  allowed 
under  the  elective  system. 

Some  of  the  chief  deficiencies  of  the  elective  system 
may  be  summed  up  under  the  following  heads : — 

I.  There  are  some  students  who,  from  pure  laziness, 
select  only  the  easiest  studies,  and  go  through  college 
with  the  very  easiest  work  which  is  possible.  But  this 
is  no  new  thing,  and  it  is  not  for  such  students  that  the 
colleges  exist.  The  college  should  not  obstruct  the  work 
of  its  earnest  men  to  keep  its  idlers  and  sneaks  from 
wasting  their  useless  time.  As  Dr.  Angell  has  said:  "  No 
plan  will  make  the  college  career  of  lazy  men  brilliant. 
.  .  .  The  work  of  the  college  should  be  organized  to 
meet  the  needs  of  the  earnest  and  aspiring  students,  rather 
than  the  infirmities  and  defects  of  the  indolent. ' '  That 
most  students,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  do  select  the  easiest 
studies  is  not  true,  as  statistics  certainly  show.  It  is,  in 
fact,  simple  nonsense  to  call  any  study  easy,  if  pursued 
in  a  serious  manner  for  a  serious  purpose.  If  any  sub- 
ject draws  to  itself  the  idlers  solely  because  it  is  easy,  the 
fault  lies  with  the  teacher.  The  success  of  the  elective 
system,  as  of  any  system,  demands  the  removal  of  ineffi- 
cient teachers.     The  elective  system  can  never  wholly 


FAULTS  OF  THE   ELECTIVE   SYSTEM.  43 

succeed  unless  each  teacher  has  the  power  and  the  will 
to  enforce  good  work, —  to  remove  from  his  classes  all 
idle  or  inefficient  students. 

2.  It  is  again  objected  that  students  having  freedom 
of  choice  are  likely  to  select  erratic  courses  in  accordance 
with  temporary  whims,  rather  than  with  any  theory  of 
educational  development.  This  again  is  true;  but  it  is 
likewise  true  that  the  course  apparently  the  most  erratic 
may  be  the  one  which  brings  the  student  in  contact  with 
the  strongest  men.  If  a  Harvard  student  of  a  few  years 
ago  could  have  made  his  college  course  exclusively  of 
botany,  embryology,  Greek,  anatomy,  and  early  English, 
it  would  seem  a  singular  combination.  It  would  sound 
differendy  if  it  were  said  that  his  teachers  in  college  were 
chiefly  Asa  Gray,  Goodwin,  Holmes,  Lowell,  and  Agassiz. 
It  is  also  true,  I  think,  that  the  average  course  as  chosen 
by  the  students  themselves  is  as  capable  of  serious  defense 
as  the  average  established  course  evolved  from  the  pull- 
ing, and  hauling,  and  patching,  and  fitting  of  the  aver- 
age college  faculty. 

3.  Another  criticism  is,  that  the  elective  system 
offers  temptation  to  undue  or  premature  specialization. 
This  is  true,  —  and  premature  specialization,  like  other 
forms  of  precocious  virtue,  is  much  to  be  deprecated. 
But  experience  does  not  lead  me  to  think  that  the  danger 
of  ' '  undue  specialization  "  is  at  all  a  serious  one.  The 
current,  in  college  and  out,  is  all  setting  the  other  way. 
The  fact  that  any  man  dares  to  specialize  at  all,  shows 
that  he  has  a  certain  independence  of  character;  for  the 
odds  are  against  it.  Specialization  implies  thorough- 
ness, and  I  believe  that  thorough  knowledge  of  some- 
thing is  the  backbone  of  culture.     Special  knowledge  of 


44    E  VOL  UTION  OF  THE  COLLEGE  CURRJCUL  UM. 

any  sort  gives  to  each  man  the  base-line  by  which  other 
attainments  may  be  measured;  and  this  unit  of  measure- 
ment in  scholarship  can  be  acquired  in  no  other  way. 
There  can  be,  I  think,  no  scholarship  worthy  of  the  name 
without  some  form  of  special  knowledge  or  special  train- 
ing as  its  central  axis.  The  self-respect  of  the  scholar 
comes  from  thorough  work.  The  man  who  feels  sure  that 
he  can  know  or  that  he  can  do  something  is  assured  at 
once  from  the  danger  of  turgid  conceit  as  from  that  of 
limp  humility.  He  can  hold  up  his  head  among  men 
with  a  "certainty  as  to  his  proper  place  among  them. 

I  have  often  heard  college  graduates  complain:  "Oh, 
if  I  had  only  studied  something  in  particular!"  "Oh,  if 
I  had  only  learned  how  to  study!"  "Oh,  if  the  time 
I  have  wasted  in  Latin  had  been  spent  in  something  else! " 
"Oh,  if  the  time  I  have  wasted  in  something  else  had 
been  spent  in  Latin! "  There  are  few  college  men  of  the 
present  generation  who  would  not  be  better  scholars 
to-day  if  half  their  curriculum  had  been  omitted  (not 
much  matter  what  half),  and  the  time  had  been  spent  on 
the  remaining  subjects.  But  you  may  say:  "  Would  you 
let  a  man  graduate  ignorant  of  chemistry,  of  Latin,  of 
logic,  of  botany  ? ' '  Well,  yes,  if  superficiality  in  every- 
thing is  the  alternative.  It  is  well  for  a  scholar  to  know 
something  of  each  of  these  and  of  each  of  the  subjects 
in  the  most  extended  curriculum.  But  he  purchases  this 
knowledge  too  dearly  if  he  buys  it  at  the  expense  of 
thoroughness  in  some  line  of  study  in  which  a  real  inter- 
est has  been  awakened. 

Then,  again,  with  certain  men  in  college  the  alterna- 
tive is  either  a  close  specialization  or  no  college  life  at  all. 
Sometimes  a  man  may  wish  in  college  to  devote  his  entire 


MEN  OF  ONE    PURPOSE.  45 

time  to  a  single  subject  —  as  physics  or  history, —  making 
himself  an  authority  on  that  subject,  but  without  any 
effort  for  broad  culture  at  all.  This  is  not  often  a  wise 
course;  but,  wise  or  not,  no  one  will  deny  that  a  college 
career  spent  in  this  way  is  better  than  none  at  all,  and 
in  after  years  such  men  are  rarely  a  source  of  shame  to 
their  Alma  Mater.  There  is  a  certain  well-known  natu- 
ralist whom  I  could  name,  who  some  fifteen  years  ago  was 
excluded  from  the  university  of  his  State  —  not  because 
he  was  idle,  or  vicious,  or  weak,  but  because  he  wanted 
to  spend  most  of  his  time  in  the  study  of  natural  history. 
The  college  had  then  no  place  for  such  a  man  as  that. 
It  had  no  use  for  bird-knowledge,  though  it  came  out 
strong  on  irregular  verbs.  But  the  same  college  is  proud 
of  him  now,  and  twelve  years  later  granted  the  degree 
it  had  refused.  Who  is  to  say  that  it  was  better  for  him 
to  leave  college  than  that  he  should  be  allowed  to  follow 
his  own  bent?  No  knowledge  comes  amiss  to  an  inves- 
tigator; but  no  investigator  can  afford  to  sacrifice  his 
speciality  for  the  sake  of  breadth  of  culture.  Thorough- 
ness is  the  main  point,  after  all,  and  should  take  prece- 
dence over  versatility.  I  do  not  mean  to  be  understood 
as  advocating  narrowness  of  sympathy  or  narrowness  of 
culture  of  any  sort.  The  broadest  education  is  none  too 
broad  for  him  who  aspires  to  lead  in  any  part  of  the 
world  of  thought.  But  the  forces  of  the  mind,  to  con- 
tinue the  figure,  should  not  be  scattered  in  guerrilla 
bands,  but  marshaled  toward  leadership. 

An  advantage  of  the  elective  system,  which  has  been 
too  often  overlooked,  is  its  reflex  influence  on  the  teacher. 
If  a  good  teacher  is  the  essential  element  in  a  good  school, 
then  anything  which   helps  to   make  his  work  better, 


46  EVOL  UTION  OF  THE  COLLEGE  CURRICUL  UM. 

more  thorough,  or  more  inspiring,  is  of  the  greatest  value 
to  the  student  The  great  teachers  of  the  world,  for  the 
most  part,  have  not  been,  and  could  not  be,  drill-masters. 
The  man  who  works  with  realities  cannot  become  a  mar- 
tinet. In  the  elective  system,  the  teacher  deals  with 
students  who  have  chosen  his  courses  for  the  love  of  the 
work  or  for  love  of  him.  Contact  with  these  classes  is  a 
constant  stimulus  and  a  constant  inspiration.  No  teacher 
can  ever  do  his  best  on  required  work  or  prescribed 
courses,  and  the  best  that  is  in  his  teacher  it  is  the  stu- 
dent's right  to  receive. 

There  is  still  much  to  be  said  in  favor  of  the  college 
in  which  discipline  pure  and  simple  is  made  the  chief  aim 
of  all  the  work.  In  such  a  school  those  subjects  —  lan- 
guages, sciences,  and  philosophy  —  which  serve  the  ends 
of  training  best  should  be  taught,  and  such  subjects  only. 
Whether  anything  more  suitable  for  this  purpose  than 
the  ancient  classics  and  mathematics  has  yet  been  found, 
I  shall  not  try  to  say;  but  the  aims  of  such  a  course 
should  be  the  same  in  kind  as  that  of  the  classical  curricu- 
lum. It  may  perhaps  be  possible  to  teach  better  things 
and  in  a  better  way  than  was  done  in  the  classical  schools; 
but  all  attempts  at  combining  in  a  prescribed  curriculum 
mental  discipline  and  a  wide  range  of  subjects  must  re- 
sult in  failure,  so  far  as  training  the  mind  is  concerned ; 
you  cannot  teach  everything  to  every  student  —  either 
the  student  or  the  college  must  choose. 

4.  Still  another  criticism  of  the  elective  system  is  just 
the  reverse  of  this.  The  elective  system  permits  undue 
scattering.  It  allows  the  student  to  flit  from  one  subject 
to  another,  thus  acquiring  versatility  without  real  train- 
ing.    This  seems  to  me  a  more  serious  fault  than  any  of 


THE    BACHELOR'S    DEGREE.  47 

the  others.  It  can  be  remedied  in  part  by  a  system  of 
major  and  minor  studies,  or  a  division  of  the  work  into 
specialities  which  must  be  pursued  for  a  considerable 
length  of  time,  and  electives  which  may  be  dropped 
after  a  simple  mastery  of  their  elements.  Some  such 
arrangement  as  this  seems  to  me  a  desirable  check  upon 
the  elective  plan,  as  it  tends  to  insure  persistence  in  some- 
thing, while  retaining  most  of  the  flexibility  of  the  latter 
system. 

Some  of  the  weakest  features  of  our  college  system 
center,  it  seems  to  me,  about  the  conventional  term 
of  four  years,  and  the  conventional  Bachelor's  degree. 
Students  are  encouraged  to  work  for  the  degree,  rather 
than  for  culture;  all  work  of  the  student  is  estimated  by 
the  bulk,  rather  than  by  the  quality.  In  an  ideal  condition 
of  things,  the  student's  work  ought  not  to  be  estimated 
at  all.  Marks  and  terms  are  clumsy  devices,  more  suit- 
able for  measuring  cordwood  than  culture.  The  degree 
is  the  official  seal  of  completion  set  on  something  which 
in  the  nature  of  things  can  never  be  completed.  For  the 
college  is  not  a  machine  for  filling  the  student  with  wis- 
dom and  learning.  It  is,  at  best,  a  place  for  self-culture. 
All  culture  is  self-culture,  or  it  is  no  culture  at  all.  Libra- 
ries, apparatus,  museums,  teachers  even,  are  useless  to 
the  student,  unless  the  student  use  them.  Teachers  give 
inspiration  and  criticism;  fellow- students  do  the  same: 
but  the  road  to  wisdom  is  a  solitary  road,  to  be  trav- 
ersed in  Indian  file. 

We  may  lay  on  the  Bachelor's  degree  at  once  too  much 
stress  or  too  little :  too  much,  for  the  degree  is  treated 
as  if  it  were  an  end  in  itself;  too  little,  for  every  college 
in  our  land  gives  this  degree  to  men  whose  sole  claim  to 


48   E  VOL  UTTON  OF  THE  COLLEGE  CURRICUL  UM. 

higher  education  consists  in  a  four  years'  residence  in  a 
college  town  —  a  four  years'  ' '  exposure  to  scholastic  influ- 
ences. ' '  They  make  their  count  of  marks  on  the  college 
books,  and  if,  by  hook  or  crook,  they  can  keep  ' '  regu- 
lar," the  march  of  time  will  carry  them  through.  Then, 
again,  the  competition  for  numbers  among  our  would-be 
* '  populous  schools ' '  often  leads  to  discrepancies  between 
the  actual  requirements  and  those  laid  down  in  the  pub- 
lished catalogues.  Thus  low  standards  are  adopted  for 
mere  numbers'  sake.  And  besides  the  reputable  institu- 
tions, all  sorts  of  mushroom  estabUshments,  in  private 
hands,  have  in  the  Middle  West  been  authorized  by  law 
to  grant  the  Bachelor's  degree  with  practically  no  scho- 
lastic requirements  at  all. 

When  the  colleges  in  the  patchwork  era  attempted  to 
teach  in  four  years  a  little  of  everything,  it  was  found 
that  by  the  same  process  a  little  of  everything  could 
likewise  be  given  in  two  years,  or  even  in  one  year,  by 
carrying  the  process  of  condensation  a  little  farther.  I 
received  a  letter  not  long  ago  from  the  president  of  an 
alleged  college  in  Kansas  —  a  school  which  gives  the 
Bachelor's  degree  on  a  course  a  year  or  two  long,  begun 
at  any  time,  and  with  no  special  preparation.  He  said  that 
he  had  exactly  one  year  of  daily  recitations  to  devote  to  all 
the  sciences,  each  completed  in  turn.  He  was  especially 
anxious  to  make  no  mistake  in  the  logical  order  of 
arrangement  of  these  sciences  —  whether  it  should  be 
chemistry,  physics,  geology,  physiology,  zoology,  and 
botany,  or  whether  the  order  would  be  better  if  reversed. 
Of  course,  the  only  answer  I  could  make  was,  that  the 
order  was  of  little  importance,  and  that  if  a  year  was  all 
the  time  he  had  for  all  of  them,  it  would  be  better  to  omit 


"^THE  INDEPENDENT  NORMAL  COLLEGER    49 

any  five,  or  at  least  any  four,  and  to  spend  his  time  on 
the  rest.  But  to  drop  any  science  would  be  to  drop  the 
pretense  of  offering  a  liberal  education.  I  have  no  doubt 
that  he  found  room  at  last  to  work  all  of  them  in,  and  a 
term  of  astronomy  and  one  of  political  economy  besides ! 

I  quote  from  the  catalogue  of  an  alleged  "  college"  in 
Indiana  a  statement  in  regard  to  its  "  scientific  course  ' ' 
of  one  year's  duration,  which  leads  to  a  degree  called 
' '  Bachelor  of  Science  "  :  "  The  graduates  [of  this  course] 
are  polished  speakers  as  well  as  accurate  mathematicians, 
thorough  scientists,  and  accomplished  Latin  scholars. 
Graduates  from  this  department  fill  good  positions,  and 
are  everywhere  known  as  leaders,  because  of  their 
energy,  perseverance,  enthusiasm,  and  never-ceasing 
activity," — and  so  on.  The  so-called  "insurmountable 
barrier"  to  a  degree  "formed  by  the  long  courses  of  the 
colleges  and  State  normal  schools  "  is  at  once  blown  away, 
and  all  obstacles  which  debar  indolence  and  ignorance 
from  the  privileges  of  scholarship  once  for  all  removed. 

I  have  a  friend  in  the  city  of  Indianapolis,  a  most  estima- 
ble gentieman,  in  the  real-estate  and  rental  business,  who 
some  forty  years  ago  received  from  the  Legislature  of  the 
State  of  Indiana  a  charter  which  constituted  him  a  ' '  uni- 
versity," entitied  to  hold  two  hundred  thousand  dollars 
in  property  free  from  all  taxes,  '  *  to  confer  all  academic 
degrees,  and  to  enjoy  all  the  rights  and  privileges  of  the 
most  favored  institution."  This  gentleman  has  been  mer- 
ciful to  his  fellow-citizens.  He  has  gone  about  his  busi- 
ness, and  has  conferred  no  degrees,  not  even  on  himself. 
But  he  has  the  legal  right  to  do  it;  and  this  incident 
shows  with  what  laxness  the  laws  of  our  States  view  the 
granting  of  collegiate  degrees.     Such  is  the  degradation 


50    E  VOL  UTION  OF  THE  COLLEGE  CURRICUL  UM. 

of  the  Bachelor's  degree,  which  has  already  brought  the 
name  of  American  graduate  into  contempt! 

Still,  at  the  best,  the  Bachelor's  degree  is  an  empty 
name.  It  is  not  in  America,  as  in  Europe,  a  key  to  any 
sort  of  personal  advancement.  And  it  is  better  that  it 
should  be  so.  It  is  better  for  each  man  to  stand  on  his 
own  merits  as  shown  by  his  own  life,  not  as  attested  by 
any  college  faculty,  * '  The  student  may  flourish  his  col- 
lege diploma,"  says  Dr.  J.  P.  Lesley,  "but  the  world 
cares  little  for  that  baby  badge. ' '  In  certain  educational 
circles,  perhaps,  a  college  degree  is  a  help,  or,  rather,  it 
may  represent  a  certain  minimum  of  culture  which  is  ex- 
pected of  all  its  members.  We  suppose  that  a  college 
professor  must  hold  a  college  degree.  But  this  is  not 
always  the  case.  I  can  count  on  my  fingers,  taking  every 
one,  a  list  of  some  of  the  ablest  of  American  college 
teachers  to-day,  who  have  never  been  graduated  from 
any  college.  Most  of  these  hold  honorary  degrees,  it  is 
true;  but  such  degrees  are  empty  tributes  of  the  college 
to  success  of  one  sort  or  another,  won  without  the  col- 
lege's help. 

It  is  true,  no  doubt,  that  the  hope  of  a  degree  coaxes 
some  men  to  stay  in  college  longer  than  they  otherwise 
would.  This  seems  a  good  thing  —  but  is  it  ?  Higher 
education  is  not  working  for  a  degree.  It  may  be  incom- 
patible with  it.  It  is  putting  a  cheap  price  on  culture  to 
induce  the  student  to  take  it,  not  because  he  wants  it, 
but  because  he  wants  something  else.  If  a  student's 
work  is  purely  perfunctory,  the  sooner  he  leaves  it  for 
something  real  the  better.  If  the  degree  is  merely  a  bait 
to  lure  him  on,  it  is  unworthy  alike  of  the  college  and  of 
the  student. 


GIVING  UP  OF  COLLEGE  DEGREES.  51 

Shall  we,  then,  abandon  the  Bachelor's  degree,  and 
give  to  each  student  merely  the  certificates  of  the  profes- 
sors under  whom  he  has  studied  ?  Some  day,  perhaps, 
but  certainly  not  yet.  The  French  writer,  Joubert,  has 
said:  "All  truth  it  is  not  well  to  tell;  but  all  truths  it  will 
be  well  to  tell  when  we  can  all  tell  them  together. ' '  There 
is  wisdom  in  this  saying.  Degrees  are  childish  things, 
and  it  would  be  well  to  lay  them  aside;  but  this  we  can- 
not do  till  we  can  all  do  it  together.  Some  ten  years 
ago,  Chancellor  Gregory,  of  the  State  University  of 
Illinois,  held  the  opinion  that  the  college  degrees  were 
undesirable  adjuncts  of  college  training.  It  was  decided 
that  by  the  University  of  Illinois  no  degrees  should  be 
granted.  But  this  decision  worked  adversely  to  the 
interests  of  the  college.  Many  students  came  there  to 
study,  who  went  elsewhere  to  complete  their  work.  The 
degree  might  be  useless,  but  the  students  wanted  it. 
Their  lack  of  a  degree  was  a  hindrance  in  securing  posi- 
tions; and  they  went  to  other  colleges  where  degrees 
were  still  given.  The  times  were  not  ready  for  this 
change,  and  the  giving  of  degrees  has  been  resumed  — 
wisely,  I  think, —  by  the  institution  in  question. 

The  same  end  is  being  reached  in  another  way  by  the 
University  of  Virginia  and  some  other  colleges  of  the 
South.  In  these  schools  the  Bachelor's  degree  receives 
little  or  no  attention,  being  practically  merged  in  the 
higher  requirements  for  the  degree  of  Master  of  Arts. 
By  merging  both  these  in  the  still  higher  degree  of  Doc- 
tor of  Philosophy,  we  have  a  condition  similar  to  that  in 
the  German  universities,  where  only  the  Doctor's  degree 
is  now  given.  Toward  this  condition  our  universities 
are  tending;  and,  through  the  change  of  the  college  into 


52    ^  VOL  UTION  OF  THE  COLLEGE  CURRICUL  UM. 

the  university,  the  Bachelor  degree  may  in  time  disap- 
pear. But  this  reform  —  if  reform  it  be  —  can  be  the 
work  of  no  one  man  or  one  school.  It  must  come  as  a 
natural  result  of  the  development  of  the  college. 

So  much  for  the  phases,  past  and  present,  of  the  col- 
lege curriculum  in  America.  What  of  the  future  ?  Will 
there  be  a  fourth,  a  fifth,  a  sixth  stage  in  its  develop- 
ment; or  is  the  system  now  full  grown,  and  the  elective 
plan,  as  we  know  it,  its  full  fruition  ? 

We  can  be  sure  that  the  world  is  still  moving.  Noth- 
ing is  stable,  nothing  is  perpetual,  nothing  is  sufficient. 
With  the  new  needs  and  the  new  men  of  the  future  will 
come  new  departments,  new  methods,  and  new  ideas. 
The  curriculum,  in  its  original  sense  of  a  little  race-course, 
with  thirty-six  hurdles  to  be  leaped  in  thirty-six  months, 
with  a  crown  of  laurel  berries  at  the  end,  will  very  soon 
be  no  more.  Special  courses  of  study  in  as  many  special 
departments  are  already  taking  its  place.  The  traditional 
four  years  of  college  training  will  disappear,  and  with  it 
the  sharp  lines  which  have  so  long  set  apart  the  Fresh- 
men, Sophomores,  Juniors,  and  Seniors.  Later  on,  but 
not  far  in  the  next  century,  the  Bachelor's  degree  will 
cease  to  be  regarded;  its  kindred,  the  Master's  degree, 
is  dying  already,  and  the  degree  of  Doctor,  the  worthiest 
of  all,  has  no  elements  of  immortality.  All  these  things 
are  forms,  and  forms  only,  not  substance;  and  the  sub- 
stance of  our  higher  education  is  fast  outgrowing  them. 
College  marks,  college  honors,  college  courses,  college 
degrees,  all  these  things  belong,  with  the  college  cap  and 
gown  and  the  wreath  of  laurel  berries,  to  the  babyhood 
of  culture.  They  are  part  of  our  inheritance  from  the 
past, —  from  the  time  when  scholarship  was  not  manhood, 


"LEHRFREIHEJT''  AND   "  LERNFREIHEIT."  53 

when  the  life  of  the  student  had  no  relation  to  the  life  of 
the  world. 

The  American  college  of  the  future  will  be  a  place  for 
self-culture.  The  chief  need  of  a  college  organization  is 
to  bring  great  teachers  together,  that  their  combined 
influence  may  effect  results  which  cannot  be  reached  in 
isolation.  In  other  words,  the  use  of  a  college  is  to 
produce  a  college  atmosphere, —  such  an  atmosphere  as 
forms  itself  around  all  great  teachers  everywhere.  The 
various  so-called  colleges  and  universities  in  America  will 
gradually  differentiate  into  universities  and  preparatory 
schools,  and  the  line  of  direction  will  ultimately  depend 
on  the  available  resources  rather  than  on  the  ambition  of 
the  school.  To  do  university  work  requires  better-trained 
professors,  and  many  more  of  them,  than  to  teach  the 
elements  of  Latin,  Greek,  and  mathematics.  This  means 
more  salaries  and  larger  salaries  than  are  now  paid. 
Schools  ill  endowed  or  not  endowed  at  all  cannot  attempt 
this.  Those  who  can  do  it  will  do  it.  The  ideas  of 
^'"LehrfreilieW''  and  '^ Lemfreiheit,'" — freedom  of  teach- 
ing and  freedom  of  study, —  on  which  the  German 
university  is  based,  will  become  a  central  feature  of  the 
American  college  system. 

The  college  as  a  separate  factor  in  our  educational  sys- 
tem must  in  time  disappear,  by  its  mergence  into  the  pre- 
paratory school,  on  the  one  hand,  and  into  the  university, 
on  the  other.  In  our  Western  States,  the  high  school 
and  the  State  university  already  complete  the  educational 
series.  The  college,  as  such,  is  already  out  of  the  cur- 
rent of  the  educational  stream.  The  most  striking  feature 
of  recent  educational  history  has  been  the  growth  of  the 
State  universities,  the  consummate  flower  of  the  public- 


54   E  VOL  UTION  OF  THE  COLLEGE  CURRICUL  UM. 

school  system.  It  needs  no  prophet  to  see  that  the  ulti- 
mate growth  of  each  and  every  one  of  these  into  real 
universities,  worthy  of  our  country  and  worthy  of  the 
coming  twentieth  century,  is  inevitable. 

With  time,  we  shall  reach  in  America  a  condition  of 
things  not  unlike  that  seen  in  Germany,  where  nothing 
intervenes  between  the  public  high  school  or  gymnasium, 
in  which  all  work  is  prescribed,  and  the  university  itself, 
in  which  all  work  is  free.  The  position  of  the  prepara- 
tory school  in  this  connection  is  by  no  means  one  to  be 
despised.  A  strong  high  school  is  far  more  valuable  to 
the  community  than  a  weak  college.  The  work  of  the 
secondary  schools  is  the  foundation  of  everything  higher. 
It  should  be  broadened  and  deepened  so  as  to  include  all 
subjects  which  experience  shows  to  belong  to  the  acces- 
sory groundwork  of  higher  education.  I  need  not  go 
over  a  list  of  these  subjects.  The  future  will  make  its 
own  list,  and  the  efforts  of  the  colleges  will  not  change 
it.  But  we  may  be  sure  that  the  ultimate  demand  of  the 
colleges  will  be  for  students  who  are  trained  to  see  and 
to  think,  not  for  students  who  can  merely  remember. 
The  best  studies  for  college  preparation  should  be  the 
best  studies  for  those  who  do  not  go  to  college.  They 
are  studies  which  give  power  and  skill,  not  those  which 
merely  give  information. 

But  here,  it  seems  to  me,  is  one  of  the  chief  difficulties 
in  the  way  of  our  colleges.  East  and  West.  No  school, 
it  seems,  is  content  to  be  a  preparatory  school;  no  school 
is  content  to  train  for  future  work  elsewhere.  Each  one 
aims  to  give  a  general  education;  to  be  a  university  in  a 
small  way,  a  "university  for  the  poor," — a  poor  uni- 
versity.    In  the  words  of  Lowell :    ' '  The  pubUc  schools 


THE    HIGH   SCHOOL.  55 

teach  too  little  or  too  much  :  too  little,  if  education  is  to 
go  no  farther;  too  many  things,  if  what  is  taught  is  to 
be  taught  thoroughly.  And  the  more  they  seem  to  teach, 
the  less  likely  is  education  to  go  farther;  for  it  is  one 
of  the  weaknesses  of  democracy  to  be  satisfied  with  the 
second  best  if  it  appear  to  answer  the  purpose  tolerably 
well,  and  to  be  cheaper,  as  it  never  is  in  the  long  run. ' ' 
In  other  words,  the  high  schools,  too,  are  in  the  patch- 
work era,  and  popular  feeling  tends  to  keep  them  there, 
to  satisfy  by  a  show  of  education  the  vast  majority  of 
their  students  who  are  likely  to  go  no  farther.  The 
growth  in  educational  systems  is  from  above  downwards, 
and  the  right  kind  of  preparatory  schools  will  arise  only 
in  response  to  the  demands  of  real  universities.  In  his- 
torical sequence,  Oxford  must  precede  Rugby,  and  the 
German  university  must  come  before  the  gymnasium. 
The  American  high  school  will  not  reach,  I  think,  the 
standard  of  the  German  gymnasium,  which  gives  train- 
ing not  inferior  in  amount  or  kind  to  that  of  our  best 
classical  colleges;  for  in  the  American  system  the  univer- 
sity methods  of  work  will  begin  lower  down  than  in  Ger- 
many. This  is  associated  with  our  qualities  as  a  people, 
as  compared  with  those  of  the  Germans.  The  American 
youth  of  twenty-one  is  more  mdependent,  more  self- 
reliant,  and,  so  far  as  his  relation  to  the  world  is  con- 
cerned, more  mature  than  the  average  German  student  is 
at  twenty-five.  America  is,  of  all  lands,  the  land  of  prot- 
estantism; and  in  education,  as  in  other  things,  every 
American  is  a  law  unto  himself  This  fact  has  its  bad 
side  as  well  as  its  good  side,  but  is  a  fact  nevertheless; 
and  as  educators  of  Americans,  we  must  take  it  into 
account. 


56  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  COLLEGE  CURRICULUM. 

The  old  forms  in  education  are  passing  away;  the  old 
barriers  are  being  taken  down;  the  old  restraints  are  being 
removed  or  relegated  to  the  days  of  boyhood  and  girl- 
hood. All  this  we  can  see,  for  it  takes  place  before  our 
eyes;  it  is  taking  place  under  our  hands,  and  this  whether 
we  wish  it  or  not.  The  college  boy  is  becoming  a  man, 
and  the  college  woman  now  stands  beside  him.  Not  all 
are  ready  for  freedom,  perhaps,  who  have  freedom  thrust 
upon  them.  There  are  not  a  few  students  to  whom  an 
enforced  discipline  is  the  only  road  to  scholarship.  But, 
with  all  imaginable  drawbacks,  our  college  work  in  Amer- 
ica yields  each  year  better  results  than  it  has  ever  yielded 
before.  We  may  be  sure  that  in  the  future,  even  more 
than  in  the  past,  the  American  college,  the  American 
university,  will  stand  in  the  front  rank  of  civilizing  influ- 
ences. 


III. 

THE    NATION'S   NEED  OF  MEN.* 

IF  the  experiment  of  government  by  the  people  is  to 
be  successful,  it  is  you  and  such  as  you  who  must 
make  it  so.  The  future  of  the  republic  must  lie  in  the 
hands  of  the  men  and  women  of  culture  and  intelligence, 
of  self-control  and  of  self-resource,  capable  of  taking  care 
of  themselves  and  of  helping  others.  If  it  falls  not  into 
such  hands,  the  republic  will  have  no  future.  Wisdom 
and  strength  must  go  to  the  making  of  a  nation.  There 
is  no  virtue  in  democracy  as  such,  nothing  in  American- 
ism as  such,  that  will  save  us,  if  we  are  a  nation  of  weak- 
lings and  fools,  with  an  aristocracy  of  knaves  as  our 
masters. 

There  are  some  who  think  that  this  is  the  condition 
of  America  to-day.  There  are  some  who  think  that  this 
republic,  which  has  weathered  so  nobly  the  storms  of 
war  and  of  peace,  will  go  down  on  the  shoals  of  hard 
times;  that  we,  as  a  nation,  cannot  live  through  the 
nervous  exhaustion  induced  by  the  financial  sprees  of  our- 
selves and  others.  We  are  told  that  our  civilization  and 
our  government  are  fit  only  for  the  days  of  cotton  and 
com  prosperity.  We  are  told  that  our  whole  industrial 
system,  and  the  civilization  of  which  it  forms  a  part,  must 
be  torn  up  by  the  roots  and  cast  away.    We  are  told  that: 

•Address  to  the  class  of  1894,  Leland  Stanford  Junior  University;  pab- 
lisfaed  in  the  Popular  Science  Monthly,  December,  1894. 

57 


58  THE  NATION'S  NEED  OF  MEN. 

the  days  of  self-control  and  self-sufficiency  are  over,  and 
that  the  people  of  this  nation  are  really  typified  by  the  law- 
less bands  rushing  blindly  hither  and  thither,  clamoring 
for  laws  by  which  those  men  may  be  made  rich  whom  all 
previous  laws  of  God  and  man  have  ordained  to  be  poor. 

In  these  times  it  is  well  for  us  to  remember  that  we 
come  of  hardy  stock.  The  Anglo-Saxon  race,  with  its 
strength  and  virtues,  was  born  of  hard  times.  It  is  not 
easily  kept  down;  the  victims  of  oppression  must  be  of 
some  other  stock.  We  who  live  in  America,  and  who 
constitute  the  heart  of  this  republic,  are  the  sons  and 
daughters  of  "him  that overcometh."  Ours  is  a  lineage 
untainted  by  luxury,  uncoddled  by  charity,  uncorroded 
by  vice,  uncrushed  by  oppression.  If  it  were  not  so,  we 
could  not  be  here  to-day. 

When  this  nation  was  born,  the  days  of  the  govern- 
ment of  royalty  and  aristocracy  were  fast  drawing  to  a 
close.  Hereditary  idleness  had  steadily  done  its  work, 
and  the  scepter  was  already  falling  from  nerveless  hands. 
God  said:  "  I  am  tired  of  kings;  I  suffer  them  no  more." 
And  when  the  kings  had  slipped  from  their  tottering 
thrones,  as  there  was  no  one  else  to  rule,  the  scepter  fell 
into  the  hands  of  the  common  man.  It  fell  into  our 
hands,  ours  of  this  passing  generation,  and  from  us  it 
will  pass  on  into  yours.  You  are  here  to  make  ready  for 
your  coronation,  to  learn  those  maxims  of  government, 
those  laws  of  human  nature,  without  which  all  adminis- 
trations must  fail ;  ignorance  of  which  is  always  punish- 
able by  death.  If  you  are  to  hold  this  scepter,  you  must 
be  wiser  and  stronger  than  the  kings;  else  you,  too,  shall 
lose  the  scepter  as  they  have  lost  it,  and  your  dynasty 
shall  pass  away. 


WEAKNESS  DEMANDS  TYRANNY.  59 

For  more  than  a  century  now  the  common  man  has 
ruled  America,  How  has  he  used  his  power?  What 
does  history  tell  us  of  what  the  common  man  has  done  ? 
It  is  too  soon  to  answer  these  questions.  A  hundred 
years  is  a  time  too  short  for  the  test  of  such  gigantic 
experiments.  Here  in  America  we  have  made  history 
already — some  of  it  glorious,  som«  of  it  ignoble;  much 
of  it  made  up  of  the  old  stories  told  over  again.  We  have 
learned  some  things  that  we  did  not  expect  to  learn.  We 
find  that  the  social  problems  of  Europe  are  not  kept  away 
from  us  by  the  quarantine  of  democracy.  We  find  that 
the  dead  which  the  dead  past  cannot  bury  are  thrown  up 
on  our  shores.  We  find  that  weakness,  misery,  and 
crime  are  still  with  us,  and  that  wherever  weakness  is 
there  is  tyranny  also.  The  essence  of  tyranny,  we  have 
found,  lies  not  in  the  strengfth  of  the  strong,  but  in  the 
weakness  of  the  weak.  We  find  that  in  the  free  air  of 
America  there  are  still  millions  who  are  not  free  — 
millions  who  can  never  be  free  under  any  government  or 
under  any  laws,  so  long  as  they  remain  what  they  are. 

The  remedy  for  oppression,  then,  is  to  bring  in  better 
men,  men  who  cannot  be  oppressed.  This  is  the  remedy 
our  fathers  sought;  we  shall  find  no  other.  The  problem 
of  life  is  not  to  make  life  easier,  but  to  make  men  stronger, 
so  that  no  problem  shall  be  beyond  their  solution.  It 
will  be  a  sad  day  for  the  republic  when  life  is  easy  for 
ignorance,  indolence,  and  apathy.  It  is  growing  easier 
than  it  was;  it  is  too  easy  already.  There  is  no  growth 
without  its  struggle.  Nature  asks  of  man  that  he  use  his 
manhood.  If  a  man  puts  no  part  of  his  brain  and  soul 
into  his  daily  work  —  if  he  feels  no  pride  in  the  part  he 
b  taking  in  life, —  the  sooner  he  leaves  the  world  the 


6o  THE   NATION'S  NEED   OF  MEN. 

better.  His  work  is  the  work  of  a  slave,  and  his  life  the 
waste  of  so  much  good  oxygen.  The  misery  he  endures 
is  nature's  testimony  to  his  worthlessness.  We  cannot 
save  him  from  nature's  penalties.  Our  duty  toward  him 
may  be  to  temper  justice  with  mercy.  This  is  not  the 
matter  of  importance.  Our  duty  toward  his  children  is 
to  see  that  they  do  not  follow  his  path.  The  grown-up 
men  and  women  of  to-day  are,  in  a  sense,  past  saving. 
The  best  work  of  the  republic  is  to  save  the  children. 
The  one  great  duty  of  a  free  nation  is  education  — 
education,  wise,  thorough,  universal;  the  education,  not 
of  cramming,  but  of  training;  the  education  which  no 
republic  has  ever  given,  and  without  which  all  republics 
must  be  in  whole  or  in  part  failures.  If  this  generation 
should  leave  as  its  legacy  to  the  next  the  real  education, 
training  in  individual  power  and  skill,  breadth  of  out- 
look on  the  world  and  on  life,  the  problems  of  the  next 
century  would  take  care  of  themselves.  There  can  be  no 
collective  industrial  problem  where  each  man  is  capable 
of  solving  his  own  individual  problem  for  himself 

In  this  direction  lies,  I  believe,  the  key  to  all  industrial 
and  social  problems.  Reforms  in  education  are  the  great- 
est of  all  reforms.  The  ideal  education  must  meet  two 
demands:  it  must  be  personal,  fitting  a  man  or  woman 
for  success  in  life;  it  must  be  broad,  giving  a  man  or 
woman  such  an  outlook  on  the  world  as  that  this  success 
may  be  worthy.  It  should  give  to  each  man  or  woman 
that  reserve  strength  without  which  no  life  can  be  success- 
ful, because  no  life  can  be  free.  With  this  reserve  the 
man  can  face  difficulties,  because  the  victor  in  any 
struggle  is  he  who  has  the  most  staying  power.  With 
this  reserve,  he  is  on  the  side  of  law  and  order,  because 


RESERVES  IN  LIFE.  6i 

only  he  who  has  nothing  to  lose  can  favor  disorder  or 
misrule.  He  should  have  a  reserve  of  property.  Thrift 
is  a  virtue.  No  people  can  long  be  free  v,ho  are  not 
thrifty.  It  is  true  that  thrift  sometimes  passes  beyond 
virtue,  degenerating  into  the  vice  of  greed.  Because 
there  are  men  who  are  greedy  —  drunk  with  the  intoxica- 
tion of  wealth  and  power, — we  sometimes  are  told  that 
wealth  and  power  are  criminal.  There  are  some  that  hold 
that  thrift  is  folly  and  personal  ownership  a  crime.  In  the 
new  Utopia  all  is  to  be  for  all,  and  no  one  can  claim  a 
monopoly,  not  even  of  himself  There  may  be  worlds 
in  which  this  shall  be  true.  It  is  not  true  in  the  world 
into  which  you  have  been  born.  Nor  can  it  be.  In  the 
world  we  know,  the  free  man  should  have  a  reserve  of 
power,  and  this  power  is  represented  by  money.  If  thrift 
ever  ceases  to  be  a  virtue,  it  will  be  at  a  time  long  in  the 
future.  Before  that  time  comes,  our  Anglo-Saxon  race 
will  have  passed  away  and  our  civilization  will  be  forgot- 
ten. The  dream  of  perfect  slavery  must  find  its  reali- 
zation in  some  other  world  than  ours,  or  with  a  race  of 
men  cast  in  some  other  mold. 

A  man  should  have  a  reserve  of  skill.  If  he  can  do 
well  something  which  needs  doing,  his  place  in  the  world 
will  always  be  ready  for  him.  He  must  have  intelligence.  / 
If  he  knows  enough  to  be  good  company  for  himself  ■ 
and  others,  he  is  a  long  way  on  the  road  toward  happi- 
ness and  usefulness.  To  meet  this  need  our  schools  have 
been  steadily  broadening.  The  business  of  education  is 
no  longer  to  train  gentlemen  and  clerg>'men,  as  it  was  in 
England;  to  fit  men  for  the  professions  called  learned, 
as  it  has  been  in  America.  It  is  to  give  wisdom  and 
fitness  to  the  common  man.     The  grreat  reforms  in  edu- 


62  THE   NATION'S  NEED    OF  MEN. 

cation  have  all  lain  in  the  removal  of  barriers.  They 
have  opened  new  lines  of  growth  to  the  common  man. 
This  form  of  university  extension  is  just  beginning.  The 
next  century  will  see  its  continuance.  It  will  see  a  change 
in  educational  ideals  greater  even  than  those  of  the  revi- 
val of  learning.  Higher  education  will  cease  to  be  the 
badge  of  a  caste,  and  no  line  of  usefulness  in  life  will  be 
beyond  its  helping  influence. 

The  man  must  have  a  reserve  of  character  and  pur- 
pose. He  must  have  a  reserve  of  reputation.  Let  others 
think  well  of  us;  it  will  help  us  to  think  well  of  ourselves. 
No  man  is  free  who  has  not  his  own  good  opinion.  A 
j^inan  will  wear  a  clean  conscience  as  he  would  a  clean  shirt, 
if  he  knows  his  neighbors  expect  it  of  him.  He  must  have 
a  reserve  of  love,  and  this  is  won  by  the  service  of  others. 
"  He  that  brings  sunshine  into  the  lives  of  others  cannot 
keep  it  from  himself."  He  must  form  the  ties  of  family 
and  friendship;  that,  having  something  at  stake  in  the 
goodness  of  the  world,  he  will  do  something  toward  mak- 
ing the  world  really  good. 

When  an  American  citizen  has  reserves  like  these,  he 
has  no  need  to  beg  for  special  favors.  All  he  asks  of 
legislation  is  that  it  keep  out  of  his  way.  He  demands 
no  form  of  special  guardianship  or  protection.  He  can 
pay  as  he  goes.  The  man  who  cannot  has  no  right  to 
go.  Of  all  forms  of  greed,  the  greed  for  free  lunches, — 
the  desire  to  get  something  for  nothing, —  is  the  most  de- 
moralizing, and  in  the  long  run  most  dangerous.  The 
Hag  of  freedom  can  never  float  over  a  nation  of  deadheads. 
Then,  again,  education  must  take  the  form  of  real 
patriotism  —  ofjpublic Jntej^  and  of  civic  virtue.  If  a 
republic  be  not  wisely  managed,  it  will  fail  as  any  other 


SETTLING   QUESTIONS  RIGHT.  63 

corporation  would;  it  will  only  succeed  as  it  deserves 
success. 

The  problems  of  government  are  questions  of  right 
and  wrong;  they  can  be  settled  only  in  one  way.  They 
must  be  settled  right.  Whatever  is  settled  wrong  comes 
up  for  settlement  again,  and  this  when  we  least  expect 
it.  It  comes  up  under  harder  conditions,  and  compound 
interest  is  charged  on  every  wrong  decision.  The  slavery 
question,  you  remember,  was  settled  over  and  over  again 
by  each  generation  of  compromisers.  When  they  led 
John  Brown  to  the  scaffold,  his  last  words  were:  "You 
would  better  —  all  you  people  of  the  South  —  prepare 
yourselves  for  a  settlement  of  this  question,  that  must 
come  up  for  a  settlement  again  sooner  than  you  are  pre- 
pared for  it.  You  may  dispose  of  me  now  very  easily," 
he  said;  "I  am  nearly  disposed  of  now;  but  this  ques- 
tion is  still  to  be  settled  —  this  negro  question,  I  mean; 
the  end  of  that  is  not  yet." 

This,  John  Brown  said,  and  they  settled  the  problem 
for  the  time  by  hanging  him.  But  the  question  rose 
again.  It  was  never  settled  until  at  last  it  was  "  blown 
hellward  from  the  cannon's  mouth."  Then  it  was  found 
that  for  every  drop  of  negro  blood  drawn  by  the  lash,  a 
thousand  drops  of  Saxon  blood  had  been  drawn  by  the 
sword. 

Thus  it  is  with  every  national  question,  large  or  small. 
Thus  it  will  be  with  the  tariff,  with  finance,  with  the  civil 
service.  Each  question  must  be  settled  right,  and  we 
must  pay  for  its  settlement.  It  is  said  that  fifteen  per 
cent  of  the  laws  on  the  statute  books  of  the  States  of  the 
Union  stand  there  in  defiance  of  acknowledged  laws  of 
social  and  economic  science.    Every  such  statute  is  blood 


64  THE  NATION'S  NEED    OF  MEN. 

poison  in  the  body  politic.  Around  every  such  law  will 
gather  a  festering  sore.  Every  attempt  to  heal  this  sore 
will  be  resisted  by  the  full  force  of  the  time-servers.  Such 
statutes  are  steadily  increasing  in  number  —  concessions 
by  short-sighted  legislatures  to  the  arrogant  monopolist, 
the  ignorant  demagogue,  or  the  reckless  agitator.  This 
must  stop.  "  They  enslave  their  children's  children  who 
make  compromise  with  sin, ' '  or  with  ignorance,  or  with 
recklessness.  "  The  gods,"  said  Marcus  Aurelius,  "  are 
at  the  head  of  the  administration,  and  will  have  nothing 
but  the  best." 

"  My  will  fulfilled  shall  be; 
In  daylight  or  in  dark. 
My  thunderbolt  has  eyes  to  see 
Its  way  home  to  the  mark!  " 

It  was  the  dream  of  the  founders  of  this  republic  that 
each  year  the  people  should  choose  from  their  number 
"  their  wisest  men  to  make  the  public  laws."  This  was 
actually  done  in  the  early  days;  for  our  first  leaders  were 
natural  leaders.  The  men  who  founded  America  were 
her  educated  men.  None  other  could  have  done  it.  But 
this  condition  could  not  always  last.  As  the  country 
grew,  ignorance  came  and  greed  developed;  ignorance 
and  greed  must  be  represented,  else  ours  would  not  be 
a  representative  government.  So  to  our  congresses  our 
people  sent,  not  the  wisest,  but  the  men  who  thought  as 
the  people  did.  We  have  come  to  choose,  in  our  law- 
makers, not  rulers,  but  representatives;  we  ask  not  wis- 
dom, but  watchfulness  for  our  personal  interests.  So  we 
send  those  whose  interests  are  ours;  those  who  act  as  our 
attorneys.  And  just  as  the  people  do  this,  so  do  the 
great  corporations,  who  form  a  large  part  of  the  people 


AGENTS,    NOT  RULERS.  65 

and  control  a  vastly  larger  part.  And  as  the  corpora- 
tions command  the  best  service,  they  often  send  as  their 
attorneys  abler  men  than  the  people  can  secure.  And 
so  it  has  come  about  that  demagogues  and  special  agents 
make  up  the  body  of  lawmakers  in  this  country,  and  this 
in  both  parties  alike.  They  represent,  notourjvisdom,  ,  yr^ 
but  our  business.  They  are  the  reflex  of  the  people  they  ^ 
represent;  no  oetter,  and  certamly  no  worse.  Those 
whose  interest  lies  in  the  direction  of  good  government 
alone  are  too  often  unrepresented. 

In  this  degree  republican  government  has  failed.  For 
this  failure  there  is  again  but  one  remedy  —  education. 
If  the  people  are  to  rule  us,  the  people  must  be  wise. 
We  must  have  in  every  community  men  trained  in  social 
and  political  science.  We  must  have  men  with  the  cour- 
age of  their  convictions;  only  education  can  give  real 
convictions.  We  must  have  men  who  know  there  is  a 
right  to  every  question  as  well  as  many  wrongs.  We 
must  have  men  who  know  what  this  right  is;  or,  if  not 
knowing,  who  know  how  the  right  may  be  found.  Very 
few  men  ever  do  that  which  they  know  and  really  believe 
to  be  wrong.  Most  wrongdoing  comes  from  a  belief 
that  there  is  no  right,  or  that  right  and  wrong  are  only 
relative. 

Professor  Powers  has  said :  ' '  We  are  no  longer  guided 
by  wise  men.  We  are  guided  by  wise  men's  wisdom  after 
we  have  reviewed  it  and  decided  that  it  is  wisdom.  An 
increasing  proportion  of  our  people  are  fairly  independ- 
ent in  their  thought,  and  vigorous  in  their  assertion  of 
their  convictions.  These  men  —  common  human  men  — 
without  their  knowledge  or  consent,  come  into  the  world 
charged  with  the  awful  responsibility  of  managing  inter- 


66  THE  NATION'S  NEED    OF  MEN. 

ests  compared  with  which  the  tasks  of  the  old  gods  of 
Olympus  were  but  as  children's  play." 

If  representative  government  is  ever  to  bring  forward 
wisdom  and  patriotism,  it  will  be  because  wisdom  and 
patriotism  exist  and  demand  representation.  In  this 
direction  lies  one  of  the  most  important  duties  of  the 
American  university.  Every  question  of  public  policy 
is  a  question  of  right  and  wrong.  To  such  questions  all 
matters  of  party  ascendency,  all  matters  of  individual 
advancement  must  yield  precedence.  There  is  no  virtue 
in  the  voice  of  majorities.  The  danger  of  ignorance 
or  indifference  is  only  intensified  when  rolled  up  in  ma- 
jorities. Truth  is  strong,  and  error  is  weak,  and  the 
majorities  of  error  melt  away  under  the  influence  of  a 
few  men  whose  right  acting  is  based  on  right  thinking. 
Right  thinking  has  been  your  privilege;  right  acting  is 
now  your  duty;  and  at  no  time  in  the  history  of  the 
world  has  duty  been  more  imperative  than  now. 


IV. 

THE  CARE  AND  CULTURE  OF  MEN.* 

*•  '  I  ''HE  best  political  economy,"  Emerson  tells  us,  "is 
1  the  care  and  culture  of  men."  Culture  is  not 
coddling,  but  training, —  not  help  from  without,  but 
growth  from  within.  The  harsh  experience  of  centuries 
has  shown  that  men  are  not  made  by  easy  processes. 
Character  is  a  hardy  plant.  It  thrives  best  where  the 
north  wind  tempers  the  sunshine. 

The  life  of  civilized  man  is  no  simple  art, —  no  auto- 
matic process.  To  make  life  easy  is  to  destroy  its  effect- 
iveness. The  civilization  to  which  we  are  born  makes 
heavy  demands  upon  those  who  take  part  in  it.  Its 
rights  are  all  duties;  its  privileges  are  all  responsibilities. 
Its  risks  are  terrible  to  those  who  do  not  make  their 
responsibilities  good.  And  these  responsibilities  are  not 
individual  alone.  They  fall  upon  all  who  are  bound 
together  in  social  or  industrial  alliance.  If  we  are  to 
bear  one  another's  burdens,  we  must  see  that  we  lay 
upon  ourselves  no  unnecessary  burdens  by  our  indiffer- 
ence or  our  ignorance.  There  is  no  safety  for  the 
republic,  no  safety  for  the  individual  man,  for  whom  the 
republic  exists,  so  long  as  he  or  his  fellows  are  untrained 
or  not  trained  aright. 

So  there  is  no  virtue  in  educational  systems  unless 
these  systems  meet  the  needs  of  the  individual.     It  is 

•Address  to  the  class  of  1895,  Leland  Stanford  Junior  University. 
67 


68         THE   CARE   AND    CULTURE   OF  MEN. 

not  the  ideal  man  or  the  average  man  who  is  to  be 
trained ;  it  is  the  particular  man  as  the  forces  of  heredity 
have  made  him.  His  own  qualities  determine  his  needs. 
"A  child  is  better  unborn  than  untaught."  A  child, 
however  educated,  is  still  untaught  if  by  his  teaching  we 
have  not  emphasized  his  individual  character,  if  we  have 
not  strengthened  his  will  and  its  guide  and  guardian,  the 
mind. 

The  essence  of  manhood  lies  in  the  growth  of  the 
power  of  choice.  In  the  varied  relations  of  life  the  power 
to  choose  means  the  duty  of  choosing  right.  To  choose 
the  right,  one  must  have  the  wit  to  know  it  and  the  will 
to  demand  it.  In  the  long  run,  in  small  things  as  in 
large,  wrong  choice  leads  to  death.  It  is  not  "  punished 
by  death,"  for  nature  knows  nothing  of  rewards  and 
punishments.  Death  is  simply  its  inevitable  result.  No 
republic  can  live — no  man  can  live  in  a  republic  in  which 
wrong  is  the  repeated  choice  either  of  the  people  or  of 
the  state. 

All  education  must  be  individual  —  fitted  to  individual 
needs.  That  which  is  not  so  is  unworthy  of  the  name. 
A  misfit  education  is  no  education  at  all.  Every  man 
that  lives  has  a  right  to  some  form  of  higher  education. 
For  there  is  no  man  that  would  not  be  made  better  and 
stronger  by  continuous  training.  I  do  not  mean,  of 
course,  that  the  conventional  college  education  of  to-day 
could  be  taken  by  every  man  to  his  advantage.  Still 
less  could  the  average  man  use  the  conventional  college 
education  of  any  past  era.  Higher  education  has  seemed 
to  be  the  need  of  the  few  because  it  has  been  so  narrow. 
It  was  born  in  the  days  of  feudal  caste.  It  was  made  for 
the  few.     Its  type  was  fixed  and  pre-arranged,  and  those 


FITTING    TRAINING    TO    MAN.  69 

whose  minds  it  did  not  fit  were  looked  upon  by  the 
colleges  as  educational  outcasts.  The  rewards  of  investi- 
gation, the  pleasures  of  high  thinking,  the  charms  of 
harmony  were  not  for  the  multitude.  To  the  multitude 
they  must  be  accessible  in  the  future;  but  not  as  gifts  — 
nothing  worth  having  was  ever  a  gift, — rather  as  rights 
to  be  talcen  by  those  who  can  hold  them. 

To  furnish  the  higher  education  that  humanity  needs, 
the  college  must  be  broad  as  humanity.  No  spark  of 
talent  man  may  possess  should  be  outside  its  fostering 
care.  To  fit  man  into  schemes  of  education  has  been  the 
mistake  of  the  past.  To  fit  education  to  man  is  the 
work  of  the  future. 

The  traditions  of  higher  education  in  America  had 
their  origin  in  social  conditions  very  different  from  ours. 
In  the  Golden  Age  of  Greece,  each  free  man  stood  on 
the  back  of  nine  slaves.  The  freedom  of  the  ten  was 
the  birthright  of  the  one.  To  train  the  tenth  man  was 
the  function  of  the  early  university.  Only  free  men  can 
be  trained.  A  part  of  this  training  of  the  tenth  in  the 
early  days  was  necessarily  in  the  arts  by  which  the  nine 
were  kept  in  subjection. 

The  universities  of  Paris,  and  Oxford,  and  Cambridge 
were  founded  to  educate  the  lord  and  the  priest.  And 
to  these  schools  and  their  successors,  as  time  went  on, 
fell  the  duty  of  training  the  gentleman  and  the  clergy- 
man. Only  in  our  day  has  it  been  recognized  that  the 
common  man  had  part  or  lot  in  higher  education.  For 
now  he  has  come  into  his  own,  and  he  demands  that  he, 
too,  may  be  noble  and  gentle.  His  own  lord  and  king 
is  the  common  man  already,  and  in  the  next  century  we 
shall  see  him  installed  as  his  own  priest.     And  through 


70        THE   CARE   AND   CULTURE   OF  MEN. 

higher  education  he  must  gain  fitness  for  his  work,  if  he 
gain  it  at  all.  And  he  must  gain  it;  for  the  future  of 
civilization  is  in  his  hands.  The  world  cannot  afford  to 
let  him  fail.  All  the  ages  have  looked  forward  to  the 
common  man  as  their  ' '  heir  apparent. ' '  The  whole  past 
of  humanity  is  staked  on  his  success. 

The  old  traditions  are  not  sufficient  for  him.  The 
narrow  processes  by  which  gentlemen  were  trained  in 
medieval  Oxford  are  not  adequate  to  the  varied  de- 
mands of  the  man  of  the  twentieth  century.  He  is  more 
than  a  gentleman.  Heir  to  all  the  ages  he  must  be;  and 
there  are  ages  since,  as  there  were  ages  before,  the  tasks 
set  in  these  schools  became  stereotyped  as  culture.  The 
need  of  choice  has  become  a  thousand-fold  greater  with 
the  extension  of  human  knowledge  and  human  power. 
The  need  of  choosing  right  is  steadily  growing  more  and 
more  imperative.  If  the  common  man  is  to  be  his  own 
lord  and  his  own  priest  in  these  strenuous  days,  his 
strength  must  be  as  great,  his  consecration  as  intense  as 
it  was  with  those  who  were  his  rulers  in  ruder  and  less 
trying  times.  The  osmosis  of  classes  is  still  going  on. 
By  its  silent  force  it  has  * '  pulled  down  the  mighty  from 
their  seats,  and  has  exalted  them  of  low  degree."  Again 
educate  our  rulers.  We  find  that  they  need  it.  They 
have,  in  the  aggregate,  not  yet  the  brains,  nor  the  con- 
science, nor  the  force  of  will  that  fits  them  for  the  task  the 
fates  have  thrown  upon  them. 

If  the  civilization  of  the  one  is  shared  by  the  ten,  it 
must  increase  tenfold  in  amount.  If  it  does  not,  the 
Golden  Age  it  seems  to  represent  must  pass  away.  To 
hold  the  civilization  we  enjoy  to-day  is  the  work  of 
higher  education.     Every  moment   we   feel  it   slipping 


THE   PRICE   OF  LIBERTY.  71 

from  our  hands.  Hence,  every  moment  we  must  strive 
for  a  fresh  hold.  "Eternal  vigilance,"  it  was  said  of 
old,  "is  the  price  of  liberty."  And  this  was  what  was 
meant.  The  perpetuation  of  free  institutions  rests  with 
free  men.  The  masses,  the  mobs  of  men,  are  never  free. 
Hence  the  need  of  the  hour  is  to  break  up  the  masses. 
They  should  be  masses  no  longer,  but  individual  men  and 
women.  The  work  of  higher  education  is  to  put  an  end 
to  the  rule  of  the  multitude.  To  tyranny  confusion  is 
succeeding,  and  the  remedy  for  confusion  is  in  the  growth 
of  men  who  cannot  be  confused. 

The  university  of  to-day  must  recognize  the  need  of  the 
individual  student  as  the  reason  for  its  existence.  If  we 
are  to  make  men  and  women  out  of  boys  and  girls,  it  will 
be  as  individuals,  not  as  classes.  The  best  field  of  corn 
is  that  in  which  the  individual  stalks  are  most  strong 
and  most  fruitful.  Class  legislation  has  always  proved 
pernicious  and  ineffective,  whether  in  a  university  or  in  a 
state.  The  strongest  nation  is  that  in  which  the  individual 
man  is  most  helpful  and  most  independent.  The  best 
school  is  that  which  exists  for  the  individual  student.  A 
university  is  not  an  aggregation  of  colleges,  departments, 
or  classes.  It  is  built  up  of  young  men  and  women. 
The  student  is  its  unit.  The  basal  idea  of  higher  edu- 
cation is  that  each  student  should  devote  his  time  and 
strength  to  what  is  best  for  him;  that  no  force  of  tradi- 
tion, no  rule  of  restraint,  no  bait  of  a  degree  should 
swerve  any  one  from  his  own  best  educational  path.  As 
Melville  Best  Anderson  has  said,  ' '  The  way  to  educate 
a  man  is  to  set  him  at  work;  the  way  to  get  him  to 
work  is  to  interest  him ;  the  way  to  interest  him  is  to 
vitalize  his  task  by  relating  it  to  some  form  of  reality." 


72         THE    CARE  AND    CULTURE    OF  MEN. 

No  man  was  ever  well  trained  whose  own  soul  was  not 
wrought  into  the  process.  No  student  was  ever  brought 
to  any  worthy  work  except  by  his  own  consent. 

So  the  university  must  not  drive,  but  lead.  Nor,  in 
the  long  run,  should  it  even  lead;  for  the  training  of  the 
will  is  effected  by  the  exercise  of  self-guidance.  The 
problem  of  human  development  is  to  bring  men  into  the 
right  path  by  their  own  realization  that  it  is  good  to  walk 
therein.  The  student  must  feel  with  every  day's  work 
that  it  has  some  place  in  the  formation  of  his  character. 
His  character  he  must  form  for  himself;  but  higher  edu- 
tion  gives  him  the  materials.  His  character  gathers  con- 
secration as  the  work  goes  on,  if  he  can  see  for  himself 
the  place  of  each  element  in  his  training.  Its  value  he 
has  tested,  and  he  knows  that  it  is  good,  and  its  results 
he  learns  to  treasure  accordingly. 

Individualism  in  education  is  no  discovery  of  our  times. 
It  was  by  no  means  invented  at  Palo  Alto;  neither  was 
it  born  in  Harvard  nor  in  Michigan.  The  need  of  it  is 
written  in  the  heart  of  man.  It  has  found  recognition 
wherever  the  ' '  care  and  culture '  *  of  man  has  been  taken 
seriously. 

A  Japanese  writer,  Uchimura,  says  this  of  education  in 
old  Japan:  "  We  were  not  taught  in  classes  then.  The 
grouping  of  soul-bearing  human  beings  into  classes,  as 
sheep  upon  Australian  farms,  was  not  known  in  our  old 
schools.  Our  teachers  believed,  I  think  instinctively,  that 
man  (persona)\s  un classifiable;  that  he  must  be  dealt  with 
personally — i.e.  face  to  face,  and  soul  to  soul.  So  they 
schooled  us  one  by  one  — each  according  to  his  idiosyn- 
crasies, physical,  mental,  and  spiritual.  They  knew  each 
one  of  us  by  his  -name.    And  as  asses  were  never  harnessed 


KNOWING   STUDENTS  BY    NAME.  73 

with  horses,  there  was  but  little  danger  of  the  latter  be- 
ing beaten  down  into  stupidity,  or  the  former  driven  into 
valedictorians'  graves.  In  this  respect,  therefore,  our 
old-time  teachers  in  Japan  agreed  with  Socrates  and 
Plato  in  their  theory  of  education.  So  naturally  the  rela- 
tion between  teachers  and  students  was  the  closest  one 
possible.  We  never  called  our  teachers  by  that  unap- 
proachable name,  Professor.  We  called  them  Seiisei^ 
men  born  before,  so  named  because  of  their  prior  birth, 
not  only  in  respect  of  the  time  of  their  appearance  in 
this  world,  which  was  not  always  the  case,  but  also  of 
their  coming  to  the  understanding  of  the  truth.  It  was 
this,  our  idea  of  relationship  between  teacher  and  student, 
which  made  some  of  us  to  comprehend  at  once  the  inti- 
mate relation  between  the  Master  and  the  disciples  which 
we  found  in  the  Christian  Bible.  When  we  found  written 
therein  that  the  disciple  is  not  above  his  master,  nor  the 
servant  above  his  lord;  or  that  the  good  shepherd  giveth 
his  life  for  his  sheep,  and  other  similar  sayings,  we  took 
them  almost  instinctively  as  things  known  to  us  long 
before." 

Thus  it  was  in  old  Japan.  Thus  should  it  be  in  new 
America.  In  such  manner  do  the  oldest  ideas  forever 
renew  their  youth,  when  these  ideas  are  based  not  on 
tradition  or  convention,  but  in  the  nature  of  man. 

The  best  care  and  culture  of  man  is  not  that  which 
restrains  his  weakness,  but  that  which  gives  play  to  his 
strength.     We  should  work  for  the  positive  side  of  life.^ . 
We  should  build  up  ideals  of  effort.     To  get  rid  of  vice 
and  folly  is  to  let  strength  grow  in  their  place. 

The  great  danger  in  democracy  is  the  seeming  pre- 
dominance of  the  weak.     The  strong  and  the  true  seem 


74         THE    CARE   AND    CULTURE   OF  MEN. 

to  be  never  in  the  majority.  The  politician  who  knows 
the  signs  of  the  times  understands  the  ways  of  majorities. 
He  knows  fully  the  weakness  of  the  common  man.  In- 
justice, violence,  fraud,  and  corruption  are  all  expressions 
of  this  weakness.  These  do  not  spring  from  competi- 
tion, but  from  futile  efforts  to  stifle  competition.  Com- 
petition means  fair  play.  Unfair  play  is  the  confession 
of  weakness. 

The  strength  of  the  common  man  our  leaders  do  not 
know.  Ignorant,  venal,  and  vacillating  the  common  man 
is  at  his  worst;  but  he  is  also  earnest,  intelligent,  and 
determined.  To  know  him  at  his  best,  is  the  essence  of 
statesmanship.  His  power  for  good  may  be  used  as  well 
as  his  power  for  evil.  It  was  this  trust  of  the  common 
man  that  made  the  statesmanship  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 
And  under  such  a  leader  the  common  man  ceased  to  be 
common.  To  know  strength  is  the  secret  of  power.  To 
work  with  the  best  in  human  nature  is  to  have  the  fates 
on  your  side. 

* '  A  flaw  in  thought  an  inch  long, ' '  says  a  Chinese 
poet,  ' '  leaves  a  trace  of  a  thousand  miles. ' '  If  collect- 
ive action  is  to  be  safe,  the  best  thought  of  the  best  men 
must  control  it.  It  is  the  ideal  of  statesmanship  to  bring 
these  best  thoughts  into  unison.  The  flaw  in  the  thought 
of  each  one  will  be  corrected  by  the  clear  vision  of  others. 
And  this  order  and  freedom,  clear  vision  and  clean  act- 
ing, we  have  the  right  to  expect  from  you.  Knowledge 
is  power,  because  thought  is  convertible  into  action. 
Ignorance  is  weakness,  because  without  clearness  of  pur- 
pose action  can  never  be  effective. 

The  best  political  economy  is  the  care  and  culture  of 
men.     The  best-spent  money  of  the  present  is  that  which 


THE  POWER    OF   THE    UNIVERSITY.         75 

is  used  for  the  future.  The  force  which  is  used  on  the 
present  is  spent  or  wasted.  That  which  is  used  on  the 
the  future  is  repaid  with  compound  interest.  It  is  for 
you  to  show  that  effort  for  the  future,  of  which  you  are 
the  subjects,  is  not  wasted  effort.  That  you  will  do  so 
we  have  no  shadow  of  doubt.  If  its  influence  on  you 
and  you  only  were  the  whole  of  the  life  of  the  university 
we  love,  it  would  be  worth  all  it  has  cost.  The  money 
and  the  effort,  the  faith  and  devotion  these  halls  have 
seen  would  not  be  wasted.  The  university  will  live  in 
you.  You  are  her  children  —  first-born,  and  it  may  be 
best-beloved, — and  in  the  ever-widening  circle  of  your 
work  she  shall  rejoice.  For  your  influence  will  be  posi- 
tive, and  therefore  effective.  It  stands  for  the  love  of 
man  and  the  love  of  truth.  No  one  can  love  man  aright 
who  does  not  love  truth  better.  And  in  the  end  these 
loves  are  alike  in  essence. 

The  foundation  of  a  university,  as  Professor  Howard 
has  told  us,  may  be  an  event  greater  in  the  history  of 
the  world  than  the  foundation  of  a  state.  By  its  life  is  it 
justified.  The  state  at  the  best  exists  for  the  men  and 
women  that  compose  it.  Its  needs  can  never  be  the 
noblest,  its  aims  never  the  highest,  because  it  can  never 
rise  above  the  present.  Its  limit  of  action  is  that  which 
now  is.  The  university  stands  for  the  future.  It  deals 
with  the  possibilities  of  men,  with  the  strength  and  virtue 
of  men  which  is  not  yet  realized.  Its  foundation  is 
the  co-operation  of  the  strong,  its  function  to  convert 
weakness  into  strength.  The  universities  of  Europe  have 
shaped  the  civilization  of  the  world.  The  universities 
of  the  world  will  shape  the  growth  of  man  so  long  as 
civilization  shall  abide. 


V. 
THE  SCHOLAR   IN   THE  COMMUNITY.* 

ALL  civilized  countries  live  under  a  government  by 
popular  opinion.  In  proportion  as  public  opinion 
is  wise  and  enlightened,  the  government  will  be  en- 
lightened and  wise.  In  other  words,  the  people  will 
always  have  as  good  a  government  as  their  intelligence 
and  patriotism  deserve,  and  no  better.  In  the  long  run 
government  can  be  made  better  only  by  the  improvement 
of  the  public  opinion  on  which  it  rests.  This  can  be 
done  only  by  the  spread  of  knowledge  and  the  develop- 
ment of  the  moral  sense.  It  is  one  of  the  chief  duties 
of  the  University  to  send  out  men  who,  by  their  personal 
influence,  shall  help  in  the  making  of  good  citizens.  The 
management  of  a  great  republic  in  these  days  is  not  a 
simple  thing.  Our  nation  has  within  itself  a  host  of  evil 
forces,  and  these  forces  will  destroy  it  if  their  influence 
is  not  met  by  still  more  potent  forces  working  together 
for  good.  We  must  know  these  evil  influences,  their 
origin,  their  power,  and  their  results,  if  we  are  to  do 
effective  work  against  them.  In  this  need  lies  the  reason 
for  your  education. 

The  nation  and  the  university  have  the  right  to  expect 
of  you,  as  educated  men  and  women,  to  stand  every- 
where as  forces  on  the  side  of  good  government.  Not 
that  you  should  be  good  citizens  merely;  that  you  should 

*  Address  to  the  Class  of  1893,  Leiand  Stanford  Jr.  University. 
76 


THE    HOPE    OF    THE    STATE.  77 

observe  the  laws,  deal  justly  with  your  neighbors,  pay 
your  debts,  support  your  families,  and  keep  out  of  jail. 
All  this  we  expect  of  men  in  general;  but  as  you  have 
had  opportunities  not  granted  to  the  majority,  the  State 
has  the  right  to  expect  more  of  you.  It  asks  not  only 
that  you  should  break  none  of  its  laws,  but  that  you 
should  help  to  make  and  sustain  wise  laws;  that  you 
should  stand  for  good,  for  right  living,  right  thinking, 
and  right  acting  in  the  community.  It  expects  you  to  do 
this,  even  at  a  sacrifice  of  your  own  personal  interests. 
If  you  should  not  so  stand,  your  education  has  been 
a  losing  bargain.  It  has  simply  ' '  sharpened  your  claws 
and  whetted  your  tusks ' '  that  you  may  the  more  easily 
prey  upon  your  unenlightened  neighbors. 

What  then  shall  the  State  expect  of  you  more  than 
of  the  others  ?  Where  shall  you  stand  when  the  count 
is  taken  in  politics,  in  morals,  in  religion?  If  you  are 
to  help  raise  the  standard  of  public  opinion,  you  must 
address  yourself  to  the  work  in  earnest.  You  must  not 
stand  aloof  from  the  people  it  is  your  duty  to  help. 
Yet,  standing  with  the  masses,  you  should  never  lose 
yourself  in  the  mass.  You  must  keep  your  own  com- 
pass and  know  your  own  road.  The  mass  will  move 
to  the  left  when  your  instincts  and  principles  tell  you  to 
go  to  the  right.  You  may  find  it  a  hard  struggle,  and 
may  seem  to  fail  at  last;  but  a  force  once  exerted  can 
never  be  lost. 

It  is  not  your  duty  to  join  yourself  to  organizations 
which  can  take  away  any  part  of  your  freedom.  It  is 
not  your  duty  to  vote  the  ticket  of  my  party,  nor  of  your 
party,  nor  that  of  any  one  of  the  time-honored  political 
organizations  into  which  men  naturally  fall.     For  you 


78        THE   SCHOLAR    IN    THE   COMMUNITY. 

and  I  know  that  the  questions  which  divide  the  great 
parties  of  a  free  country  are  not,  as  a  rule,  questions 
of  morals  or  good  citizenship.  The  sheep  are  never  all 
on  one  side,  nor  the  goats  on  the  other.  Party  divi- 
sions are  based,  for  the  most  part,  on  hereditary  tenden- 
cies, on  present  expediencies,  and  hopes  of  temporary 
gain,  and  too  often  on  the  distribution  of  power  and 
plunder,  of  power  to  plunder.  When  your  party  is  led 
by  bad  men,  or  when  its  course  is  headed  in  the  wrong 
direction,  your  State  expects  you  as  educated  men  to 
know  it. 

Your  State  expects  you  to  have  the  courage  of  your 
convictions.  Your  State  expects  you  to  have  the  power 
to  stand  alone  —  to  bolt,  if  need  be,  when  other  modes 
of  protest  fail.  You  will  not  win  friends  by  asserting 
your  manhood  against  partisan  pressure.  You  will  not 
pave  the  way  to  a  vote  of  thanks  or  a  nomination  to  Con- 
gress, but  you  will  keep  your  own  self-respect,  and  some 
day,  when  the  party  recovers  its  senses,  you  will  see 
it  come  in  full  run  in  your  direction. 

One  duty  of  the  scholar  in  politics  is  to  serve  as  an 
antidote  to  the  thick-and-thin  partisan — the  rock-ribbed 
Bourbon  of  any  party,  who  learns  nothing,  and  scruples 
at  nothing.  A  good  citizen,  as  has  been  well  said,  can- 
not vote  an  unscratched  ticket.  The  man  who  does  so, 
in  whatever  party,  leaves  in  the  course  of  years  few  sorts 
of  rascals,  public  or  private,  unsupported  by  his  vote. 
The  men  whom  your  vote  helps  to  elect  are  properly 
regarded  as  your  representatives,  and  the  knave,  the 
trickster,  the  gambler,  the  drunkard,  the  briber,  the 
boss,  should  not  rightfully  represent  you.  If  such  do 
represent  you,  it  would  be  better  for  our  country  if  you 


THE    FREE    MAN.  79 

were  left  unrepresented,  and  the  State  has  made  a  losing 
bargain  in  educating  you. 

I  do  not  plead  for  political  isolation.  That  you  stand 
aloof  from  the  majority,  is  no  proof  that  you  are  right 
and  they  are  wrong.  For  the  most  part,  we  believe,  the 
feeling  of  the  majority  is  not  far  from  right.  The  great 
heart  of  the  republic  beats  true.  To  doubt  this  would 
be  to  despair  of  popular  government.  But  whether  right 
or  wrong,  the  majority  of  the  party  are  not  the  keepers 
of  your  conscience.  Your  conscience  is  your  own.  ' '  I 
went  into  this  convention,"  said  a  brave  man  once,  "a 
free  man,  with  my  own  head  under  my  own  hat,  and  a 
free  man  I  meant  to  come  out  of  it."  The  opinions  of  the 
majority  are  molded  by  the  few.  That  among  these  few 
who  would  mold  opinion  you  should  stand,  is  a  reason 
for  your  training  in  the  science  of  government.  In  all 
questions  of  public  or  private  policy,  be  yourself,  no  mat- 
ter who  your  grandfather  was,  no  matter  who  your  neigh- 
bor may  be.  If  you  are  born  and  bred  in  any  party, 
think  of  these  things.  A  hereditary  yoke  is  ignoble; 
shake  it  off,  and  then,  when  once  a  free  man,  you  may 
resume  your  place,  if  you  choose.  If  there  must  be  a 
hereditary  partisanship  in  your  family,  be  you  the  man 
to  start  it.  Be  the  first  in  your  dynasty,  and  encourage 
your  son  to  be  the  first  in  his. 

But  your  State  expects  more  of  you  than  mere  inde- 
pendence of  hereditary  prejudices.  Let  it  never  be  said 
of  you:  "  It  is  for  his  interest  to  do  so  and  so;  therefore 
we  can  count  on  him.  He  lives  in  the  First  Ward;  there- 
fore he  believes  in  prohibition.  He  lives  in  the  Sixth 
Ward;  therefore  his  vote  is  for  free  whisky.  He  will  make 
by  this  thing;  therefore  he  favors  that  course  of  action." 


8o        THE   SCHOLAR    IN    THE   COMMUNITY. 

It  is  much  easier  to  be  independent  of  political  bosses  than 
to  be  free  from  the  dictation  of  your  own  selfish  instincts. 
But  the  good  citizen  is  superior  to  the  prejudices  of  his 
locality,  to  the  selfish  interests  of  his  trade.  The  good 
man  is  a  citizen  of  the  State,  not  of  the  Sixth  Ward — not  of 
the  iron  county,  nor  of  the  raisin  county,  nor  of  the  State 
merely,  nor  of  the  United  States.  The  good  citizen  is  a 
citizen  of  the  world;  itself,  as  citizenship  improves,  be- 
coming one  vast  community,  the  greatest  of  all  republics. 
For  true  patriotism  is  not  a  matter  of  waving  flags  and 
Fourth  of  July  orations.  It  lies  not  in  denouncing  Eng- 
land nor  in  fighting  Chile;  not  in  cock-crowing  nor  in 
bull-baiting.  It  consists  in  first  knowing  what  is  true 
about  one's  own  community  or  country,  and  then  in  the 
willingness  to  sink  one's  personal  interest  in  the  welfare 
of  the  whole.  All  patriotism  which  involves  neither 
knowledge  nor  self-devotion  is  a  worthless  counterfeit. 

We  have  the  right  to  expect  the  scholar  to  serve  as  an 
antidote  to  the  demagogue.  You  have  been  trained  to 
recognize  the  fetiches  and  bugaboos  of  the  past;  you 
should  know  those  of  the  present.  Notions  as  wild,  if 
not  as  wicked,  as  the  witchcraft  that  haunted  Salem  two 
hundred  years  ago  still  vex  our  American  life.  The 
study  of  history  is  your  defense  against  these.  As  ' '  the 
running  stream,  they  dare  na'  cross, ' '  kept  off  the  witches 
of  old,  so  will  your  studies  in  this  field  defend  you  from 
bugaboos,  alive  or  dead.  You  hold  the  magic  wand  be- 
fore which  the  demagogue  is  silent  and  harmless.  It  is 
your  duty  and  privilege  to  use  it  for  the  people's  good. 

It  is  true  that  America  is  not  the  best  governed  of  the 
civilized  nations.  You  know  that  this  is  so.  You  know 
that  America's  foreign  policy  is  weak,  vacillating,  ineffi- 


MISRULE    IN   AMERICA.  8i 

cient.  You  know  that  her  internal  policy  is  lavish, 
careless,  unjust.  You  know  that  we  no  longer  send,  as 
in  the  old  days,  "our  wisest  men  to  make  the  public 
laws."  You  know  that  our  legislative  bodies,  from  the 
board  of  aldermen  to  the  United  States  Senate,  are  not 
always  bodies  of  which  we  are  proud.  You  know  that 
their  members  often  are  not  men  in  whom  the  people 
have  confidence.  Our  civil  service  has  been  one  of  the 
worst  "on  the  planet";  our  foreign  service  has  been  the 
laughingstock  of  Europe.  Our  courts  of  justice,  on  the 
whole  the  soundest  part  of  our  Government,  are  not 
all  that  they  should  be.  Too  often  they  are  neither 
swift  nor  sure.  Too  often  the  blindfold  goddess  who 
rules  over  them  is  quick  to  discern  the  pressure  of  the 
finger  of  gold  on  the  "wrong  side  of  the  balances." 
Our  currency  fluctuates  for  the  benefit  of  the  gambler, 
who  thrives  at  the  laborer's  cost.  In  all  this  our  own 
California  offers  no  exception.  The  history  of  her  gov- 
ernment is  a  short  one,  but  it  is  long  with  the  records  of 
misrule  and  corruption.  Her  average  of  general  intelli- 
gence is  high.  Her  average  of  special  knowledge  is 
low,  and  equally  low  is  her  standard  of  patriotism. 

All  these  things  we  know,  and  worse,  and  they  vex  us 
and  discourage  us,  and  some  there  are  among  us  who 
wish  that  we  had  a  heaven-descended  aristocracy,  an 
aristocracy  of  brains  at  least,  who  could  take  these 
things  out  of  the  people's  hands,  out  of  your  hands  and 
mine,  and  make  them  and  keep  them  right.  I  do  not 
feel  thus.  It  is  better  that  the  people  should  suffer,  with 
the  remedy  in  their  own  hands,  than  that  they  should  be 
protected  by  some  power  not  of  themselves.  Badly 
though  the  people  may  manage  their  own  affairs,  the 
G 


82        THE  SCHOLAR    IN    THE    COMMUNITY. 

growth  of  the  race  depends  upon  their  doing  it.  We 
would  rather  the  people  would  rule  ill  through  choice 
than  that  they  should  be  ruled  well  through  force.  The 
Reign  of  Terror  gives  more  hope  for  the  future  than  the 
reign  of  the  good  King  Henry.  The  story  of  the  decline 
and  fall  of  empires  is  the  story  of  the  growth  of  man. 

It  is  not  that  the  laws  of  England  should  be  made  better 
that  Gladstone  took  into  partnership,  as  law-makers,  two 
millions  of  England's  farmers  and  workmen  who  can 
barely  read  or  write.  The  laws  for  a  time,  at  least,  will 
not  be  as  good,  but  those  for  whom  the  laws  are  made 
will  be  better,  and  the  good  of  the  people  is  the  object 
of  law.  It  is  not  our  confidence  in  Irish  wisdom  and 
prudence  that  leads  every  American  to  approve  of  Home 
Rule  in  Ireland.  It  is  our  sympathy  with  Irish  manhood 
and  our  belief  that  Irish  manhood  can  manage  its  own 
affairs.  It  is  not  that  our  Southern  States  should  be  bet- 
ter governed  that  three  millions  of  freedmen,  little  more 
intelligent  in  the  mass  than  the  dog  or  horse  with  which 
a  few  years  before  they  had  been  bought  and  sold,  were 
given  the  right  to  vote.  No  better  for  the  State,  per- 
haps; for  an  ignorant  vote  is  a  cowardly  vote,  and  a  vote 
which  money  will  buy.  No  better  for  the  State,  but 
better  for  humanity,  that  her  laws  should  recognize  the 
image  of  God  hidden  in  each  dusky  skin.  For  lawless- 
ness, turbulence,  misgovernment  is  better  than  prosperity 
with  its  heel  on  the  neck  of  a  silent  race  which  cannot 
rise  nor  speak. 

But  all  government  by  the  people  is  made  better  when 
the  people  come  to  know  and  feel  its  deficiencies.  No 
abuse  can  survive  long  when  the  people  have  located  it. 
When  the  masses  know  what  hurts  them,  that  particular 


IDEALS    OF    UTOPIA.  83 

wrong  must  cease.  Its  life  depends  upon  its  appearing 
in  the  disguise  of  a  public  blessing.  Straight  thinking, 
as  you  have  learned,  comes  before  straight  acting,  and 
both  we  expect  of  you.  To  you,  as  educated  men  and 
women,  the  people  have  a  right  to  look.  They  have  a 
right  to  expect  your  influence  in  the  direction  of  the 
ideal  government,  the  republic  in  which  government  by 
the  people  shall  be  good  government  as  well;  the  govern- 
ment from  which  no  man  nor  woman  shall  be  excluded, 
and  in  which  no  man  nor  woman  shall  be  ignorant,  or 
venal,  or  corrupt. 

The  influence  of  the  university  life  is  in  the  direction 
of  high  ideals.  The  trained  mind  is  the  best  keeper  of 
the  clear  conscience.  It  is  the  duty  of  the  university  to 
fill  the  student's  mind  with  high  notions  of  how  his  per- 
sonal, social,  and  political  life  ought  to  be  conducted  and 
to  lead  him  toward  discontent  with  that  which  is  on  a 
lower  plane.  You  have  all  heard  it  said  that  certain 
reforms  in  American  life  are  advocated  only  by  college 
professors  and  by  boys  just  out  of  college.  It  is  said 
that  these  notions  of  college  boys  would  be  admirable  in 
Utopia,  but  are  ridiculous  in  nineteenth-century  America. 
We  are  told  that  self-seeking  and  corruption  are  essen- 
tial elements  in  our  American  life.  That  in  our  political 
and  social  battles  we  must  not  be  squeamish,  but  must 
fight  our  adversaries  as  devils  are  said  to  fight  each 
other  —  with  fire.  Of  course,  this  charge  of  Utopianism 
is  in  the  main  true,  and  I  trust  that  it  may  remain  so. 
The  Utopian  element  is  one  which  our  life  sorely  needs. 
We  have  fought  the  devil  with  fire  long  enough.  Too 
long  have  we  attempted  good  results  by  evil  means. 
Too  long  has  the  right  been  grandly  victorious  through 


84        THE  SCHOLAR    IN    THE   COMMUNITY. 

bribery,  falsehood,  and  fraud,  till  we  are  more  afraid  of 
the  bad  means  of  our  friends  than  the  bad  ends  of  our 
adversaries. 

What  though  all  reform  seem  Utopian,  —  does  that  ab- 
solve you  ?  Unless  your  soul  dwells  in  Utopia,  life  is  not 
worth  the  keeping.  Your  windows  should  look  toward 
heaven,  not  into  the  gutter.  You  should  stand  above 
the  level  of  the  world's  baseness  and  filth.  If  our  schol- 
ars do  not  so  stand  —  if  our  training  end  in  the  production 
merely  of  sharper  manipulators  than  those  we  had  before 
(and  we  know  there  is  an  undercurrent  in  our  college  life 
tending  just  in  that  direction),  then  the  sooner  we  bar 
our  windows  and  don  our  striped  uniforms,  the  better  for 
the  country. 

But  we  need  not  take  this  dark  view  of  the  future.  We 
know  that,  on  the  whole,  training  makes  for  virtue. 
There  is  a  natural  connection  between  ' '  Sweetness  and 
Light."  We  know  that  whatever  leads  the  youth  to  look 
beyond  the  narrow  circle  in  which  he  stands,  is  his  best 
safeguard  against  temptation.  We  know  that  if  the  youth 
fall  not,  the  man  will  stand.  I  shall  not  argue  this  ques- 
tion. I  assume  it  as  a  fact  of  experience,  and  it  is  this 
fact  which  gives  our  public-school  system,  of  which  my 
life  and  yours  is  in  some  degree  a  product,  the  right 
to  exist.  "A  dollar  in  a  university,"  says  Emerson, 
"  is  worth  more  than  a  dollar  in  a  jail.  If  you  take  out 
of  this  town  the  ten  honestest  merchants,  and  put  in  ten 
rogues,  with  the  same  amount  of  capital,  the  rates  of 
insurance  will  soon  indicate  it,  the  soundness  of  the  banks 
will  show  it,  the  highways  will  be  less  secure,  the  schools 
will  feel  it,  the  children  will  bring  home  their  little  dose 
of  poison,  the  judge  will  sit  less  firmly  on  his  bench,  and 


THE  NATION'S  NEED    OF  MEN.  85 

his  decisions  will  be  less  upright;  he  has  lost  so  much 
support  and  constraint,  which  we  all  need,  and  the  pulpit 
will  betray  it  in  a  laxer  rule  of  life."  If  taking  from  the 
community  ten  good  men  and  replacing  them  with  bad 
men  work  this  evil,  what  will  come  from  doing  the 
reverse  ?  If  we  add  ten  good  men  —  one  good  man  — 
to  any  community,  the  banks,  the  courts,  the  churches, 
the  schools  will  feel  it  as  an  impulse  toward  better 
things. 

The  statesmanship  of  every  nation  has  regarded  the 
development  of  higher  education  as  a  plain  duty  to  itself. 
The  great  universities  of  the  world  have  arisen,  not  from 
the  overflow  of  riches,  but  from  the  nation's  need  of  men. 
The  University  of  Leyden  was  founded  in  the  darkest 
days  of  Holland's  history  as  the  strongest  barrier  Holland 
could  raise  against  Spanish  oppression —  rs  the  most 
effective  weapon  she  could  place  in  the  hands  01  "W  .lliam 
the  Silent. 

For  the  State  —  that  is,  every  man  in  the  State  —  is 
helped  and  strengthened  by  all  that  makes  its  members 
wiser,  better,  or  more  enlightened.  That  you  are  edu- 
cated, if  educated  aright,  tends  to  raise  the  price  of 
every  foot  of  land  around  you.  When  Emerson,  and 
Hawthorne,  and  Thoreau  lived  in  Concord,  this  fact  was 
felt  in  the  price  of  every  city  lot  in  Concord.  Men  from 
other  towns  were  willing  to  pay  money  in  order  to  live 
near  them.  When  a  smart  lawyer,  a  few  years  ago,  was 
elected  governor  of  Massachusetts,  there  were  men  who 
left  that  State  rather  than  that  he  should  be  their  gov- 
ernor. You  and  I  are  not  so  sensitive,  perhaps;  but 
however  that  may  be,  the  election  of  a  bad  man  as  gov- 
ernor will  be  felt  in  the  falling  price  of  land  and  houses, 


86         THE  SCHOLAR  IN  THE  COMMUNITY. 

in  the  falling  price  of  honesty  and  truth  in  the  markets 
of  the  nation. 

As  in  political,  so  in  social  life,  should  the  student 
stand  as  a  barrier  against  materialism.  Not  alone  against 
the  elaborate  materialism  of  the  erudite  philosopher.  Its 
virus,  dry  and  dusty,  attenuated  by  its  transfer  from 
Germany,  can  rarely  do  much  harm.  But  there  is  a 
subtler  materialism  which  pervades  our  whole  life.  It 
sits  in  the  cushioned  pews  of  our  churches,  as  well  as  in 
our  marts  of  trade.  It  preaches  the  gospel  of  creature 
comforts  and  the  starvation  of  the  spirit.  It  preaches 
the  gospel  of  selfhood,  instead  of  the  law  of  love.  It 
asks  of  all  the  scholar  should  hold  dear, —  of  truth,  and 
beauty,  and  goodness,  and  sweetness,  and  light, —  what 
are  these  things  worth?  If  they  will  bring  no  money 
in  this  world,  nor  save  our  souls  in  the  next,  we  want 
nothing  of  them.  Wherever  you  go  after  you  leave  the 
college  halls,  you  will  feel  the  chill  of  this  materialism. 
You  must  keep  your  sympathies  warm,  and  your  soul 
open  to  all  good  influences,  to  keep  it  away. 

There  is,  too,  a  sort  of  skepticism  about  us  against 
which  the  scholar  should  be  proof  Once  the  skeptic 
was  the  man  simply  who  had  his  eyes  open;  the  man 
who  questioned  nature  and  life,  and  from  such  question- 
ing has  all  of  our  knowledge  come.  But  questioning 
with  eyes  open  is  not  the  same  as  doubting  with  eyes 
closed.  There  is  a  doubting  which  saps  the  foundation 
of  all  growth,  which  cuts  the  nerve  of  all  progress.  It  is 
the  question  of  Pilate,  who  doubted — "What  is  truth?" 
Whether,  indeed,  any  truth  exists?  And  whether,  after 
all,  being  is  other  than  seeming? 

Every  robust  human  life  is  a  life  of  faith.     Not  faith 


THE  LIFE   OF  FAITH.  87 

in  what  other  men  have  said  and  thought  about  life,  or 
death,  or  fate;  but  faith  that  there  is  something  in  the 
universe  that  transcends  man  and  all  man's  conceptions 
of  right  and  wrong,  and  which  it  is  well  for  man  to  know. 

Some  forty  years  ago  a  president  of  the  University  of 
Indiana  is  reported  to  have  said:  "The  people  insist  on 
being  humbugged;  so  it  is  our  duty  to  humbug  them." 
Great  is  the  power  of  Humbug,  and  many  and  mighty 
are  his  prophets !  Do  you  never  believe  this.  A  pin- 
prick in  the  ribs  will  kill  the  charlatan,  but  the  man  who 
is  genuine  throughout  is  clad  in  triple  armor.  To  him 
and  to  his  teachings  will  the  people  turn  long  after  the 
power  of  humbug  is  forgotten.  The  studies  you  have 
followed  as  a  scholar  should  teach  you  to  know  and  value 
truth.  You  have  found  some  things  which  you  should 
know  as  true,  judged  by  any  tests  the  world  can  offer. 

In  his  relations  with  others,  the  scholar  must  be  toler- 
ant. Culture  comes  from  contact  with  many  minds.  To 
the  uncultured  mind,  things  unfamilar  seem  uncouth,  out- 
landish, abhorrent.  A  wider  acquaintance  with  the  affairs 
of  our  neighbor  gives  us  more  respect  for  his  ideas  and 
ways.  He  may  be  wrong-headed  and  perverse;  but  there 
is  surely  something  we  can  learn  from  him.  So  with 
other  nations  and  races.  Each  can  teach  us  something. 
In  civilized  lands  the  foreigner  is  no  longer  an  outcast, 
an  object  of  fear  or  abhorrence.  The  degree  of  tolerance 
which  is  shown  by  any  people  toward  those  whose  opin- 
ions differ  from  their  own  is  one  of  the  best  tests  of  civ- 
ilization. It  is  a  recognition  of  individuality  and  the  rights 
of  the  individual  in  themselves  and  in  others. 

I  need  not  dwell  on  this.  The  growth  of  tolerance  is 
one  of  the  most  important  phases  in  the  history  of  mod- 


88  THE  SCHOLAR  IN  THE  COMMUNITY. 

em  civilization.  The  right  of  freedom  of  the  mind,  the 
right  of  private  interpretation,  is  a  birthright  of  humanity. 
As  the  scholar  has  taken  a  noble  part  in  the  struggle 
which  has  won  for  us  this  freedom,  so  should  he  guard 
it  in  the  future  as  one  of  his  highest  possessions.  It  is 
each  man's  right  to  hew  his  own  pathway  toward  the 
truth.  If  there  be  in  this  country  a  town,  North,  South, 
East,  West,  on  the  banks  of  the  Yazoo,  or  the  Hudson, 
or  the  Sacramento,  where  an  honest  man  cannot  speak 
his  honest  mind  without  risk  of  violence  or  of  social 
ostracism,  in  that  town  our  freedom  is  but  slavery  still, 
and  our  civilization  but  a  barbarism  thinly  disguised. 

The  man  who  speaks  may  be  a  sage  or  a  fool;  he  may 
be  wise  as  a  serpent,  or  harmless  as  a  calf;  he  may  please 
us  or  not:  yet,  whatever  he  be,  his  freedom  of  speech  is 
his  American's  birthright.  To  words,  if  you  like,  you 
can  answer  with  words.  The  whole  atmosphere  is  yours, 
from  which  to  frame  your  replies.  If  you  are  right,  and 
he  is  wrong,  so  much  the  stronger  will  your  answer  be. 
But  the  club,  the  brick,  the  shotgun,  or  the  dynamite 
bomb  are  not  the  answer  of  the  free  man  or  the  brave. 
They  convince  nobody;  and  of  all  oppressive  laws,  the 
law  which  is  taken  in  the  hands  of  the  mob  is  the  most 
despotic  and  most  dangerous. 

The  scholar  should  never  allow  himself  to  become  a 
mere  iconoclast.  He  has  no  strength  to  waste  in  con- 
troversy. Truth  is  non-resistant  because  its  enemies 
cannot  last.  There  is  not  much  to  be  gained  from 
tearing  down.  Build  something  better,  and  the  old  will 
disappear  of  itself. 

When  a  righteous  man  attempts  to  reform  society  by 
attacking  an  unrighteous  man,  the  public  forms  a  ring 


THE  SEARCH  FOR    THE  HOLY  GRAIL.     89 

around  the  two,  to  see  that  there  is  fair  play,  and  that 
truth  and  falsehood  are  given  alike  a  fair  show.  Soon 
the  public  ceases  to  be  interested  in  the  question  of  who 
is  right,  and  becomes  interested  in  who  is  the  best  fellow. 

The  people  have  the  right  to  expect  of  the  scholar 
growth.  One  of  the  saddest  products  of  the  college  is 
that  which  in  science  is  called  ' '  arrested  development. ' ' 
When  the  student  is  transplanted  from  the  hotbed  of  the 
college  to  the  cold  soil  of  the  world,  his  growth  some- 
times ceases,  to  the  disappointment  of  his  friends  and 
the  dismay  of  those  who  have  faith  in  higher  education. 
Without  that  perseverance  which  thrives  under  adver- 
sity, your  attainments  in  college  will  avail  you  littie. 

You  have  reached  one  port  in  the  journey  of  life;  and 
of  this  achievement  you  have  the  right  to  be  proud. 
But  the  first  port  is  not  the  end  of  the  voyage.  The 
great  ocean  is  still  beyond  you,  and  the  value  of  the 
voyage  in  the  long  run  is  proportionate  to  the  distance 
of  the  port  for  which  you  are  bound.  It  takes  a  longer 
preparation  and  a  larger  equipment  for  a  voyage  to  the 
Cape  of  Good  Hope  than  for  a  sail  to  the  "Isle  of  Dogs." 

The  value  of  a  life  is  measured  by  its  aim  rather  than 
by  its  achievement.  Loftiness  of  aim  is  essential  to  lofti- 
ness of  spirit.  Nothing  that  is  really  high  can  be  reached 
in  a  short  time  nor  by  any  easy  route.  Most  men,  as 
men  go,  aim  at  low  things,  and  they  reach  the  objects  of 
their  ambitions.  They  have  only  to  move  in  straight 
lines  to  an  end  clearly  visible.  Not  so  with  you.  You 
are  bound  on  a  quest  beyond  the  limit  of  your  vision. 
There  are  mountains  to  climb,  rivers  to  ford,  deserts  to 
cross  on  your  search  for  the  Holy  Grail.  The  end  is 
never  in  sight.     You  have  always  to  trust  and  struggle 


90        THE   SCHOLAR    IN    THE   COMMUNITY. 

on,  parting  company  at  every  step  with  those  who  have 
chosen  more  accessible  goals  or  are  diverted  from  the 
great  quest  by  chance  attractions.  * '  Heaven  is  not 
reached  by  a  single  bound,"  nor  by  him  who  knows  not 
whither  he  is  going. 

That  your  aims  in  life  are  high,  that  you  are  pledged 
to  a  life  of  effort  and  growth,  is  shown  by  your  presence 
here.  Were  it  not  so,  you  would  never  have  pressed 
thus  far  onward.  You'would  be  with  the  hundreds  and 
thousands  of  your  contemporaries  who  are  satisfied  with 
inferior  aims  reached  in  an  inferior  way. 

We  all  recognize  this  fact,  even  though  we  may  not 
have  put  the  thought  into  words.  The  banks  recognize 
it.  Without  a  dollar  in  your  pocket,  you  can  borrow 
money  on  the  strength  of  your  purpose.  Many  of  you 
have  already  done  this.  You  may  have  to  do  it  again. 
It  is  right  that  you  should.  Strength  of  purpose  is  a 
legitimate  capital.  By  your  own  desires  and  aspirations 
you  are  enriched.  In  a  free  country  there  can  be  but 
one  poor  man  —  the  man  without  a  purpose. 

What  you  have  done  thus  far  is  little  in  itself.  You 
have  reached  but  the  threshold  of  learning.  Your  edu- 
cation is  barely  begun,  and  there  is  no  one  but  you  who 
can  finish  it.  Your  thoughts  are  but  as  the  thoughts  of 
children,  your  writings  but  trash  from  the  world's  waste- 
paper  basket.  Nothing  that  you  know,  or  think,  or  do 
but  has  been  better  known  or  thought  or  done  by  others. 
The  work  of  your  lives  is  barely  begun.  You  must  con- 
tinue to  grow  as  you  are  now  growing  before  you  can 
serve  the  world  in  any  important  way.  But  the  promise 
of  the  future  is  with  you.  You  have  the  power  and  will 
of  growth.     The  sunshine  and  rain  of  the  next  century 


THE    LAW   OF    GROWTH  91 

will  fall  upon  you.  You  will  be  stimulated  by  its 
breezes,  you  will  be  inspired  by  its  spirit. 

It  is  not  an  easy  thing  to  grow.  Decay  and  decline  is 
easier  than  growth — so  the  trees  will  tell  you.  Growth 
is  slow,  and  hard,  and  wearisome.  The  lobster  suffers 
the  pangs  of  death  every  time  he  outgrows  and  sheds  his 
shell;  but  each  succeeding  coat  of  armor  is  thicker,  and 
stronger,  and  more  roomy.  So  with  you.  You  will 
find  it  easier  not  to  develop.  It  will  be  pleasanter  to 
adjust  yourself  to  old  circumstances  and  to  let  the  moss 
grow  on  your  back.  The  struggle  for  existence  is  hard; 
the  struggle  for  improvement  is  harder;  and  some  there 
are  among  you  who  sooner  or  later  will  cease  struggling. 
Such  will  be  the  cases  of  arrested  development — those 
who  promised  much  and  did  little,  those  whose  educa- 
tion did  not  bring  effectiveness.  Be  never  satisfied  with 
what  you  have  accomplished,  the  deeds  you  can  do,  the 
thoughts  you  can  think.  Such  satisfaction  is  the  sting 
of  old  age,  the  feeling  that  the  best  is  behind  us,  and  that 
the  noble  quest  is  over  forever. 

The  scholar  shall  be  a  man  of  honor,  one  whom  men 
may  trust.  Once  a  king  wrote  to  his  queen,  after  a 
disastrous  battle:  "Madam,  all  is  lost — all  but  our 
honor."  When  honor  is  saved  a  battle  can  never  be 
lost.  But  in  many  of  the  batties  and  sham  fights  of  the 
world  —  in  most  of  those,  perhaps,  in  which  you  will  be 
called  to  take  part, —  the  honor  on  one  side  or  the  other  is 
the  first  thing  to  be  lost.  Some  men,  in  entering  public 
life,  lay  aside  their  consciences  as  Cortez  burned  his 
ships,  that  they  may  not  be  tempted  to  retreat  toward 
honor  and  decency.  People  say,  as  you  have  heard, 
that  the  sense  of  honor  in  our  republic  is  waning;  that 


92        THE  SCHOLAR   IN   THE    COMMUNITY. 

sentiment  in  politics  or  business  is  a  thing  of  the  past. 
Certainly,  from  Franklin,  and  Hamilton,  and  Knox,  and 
Jay  to  some  public  servants  we  have  seen,  the  fall  has 
been  great,  and  the  descent  to  Avemus  seems  easy.  We 
hear  sometimes  of  men  who  possess  the  old-fashioned 
ideas  of  honor,  and  we  associate  these  men  with  the 
knee-breeches,  and  wigs,  and  ruffles  of  the  same  old- 
fashioned  times.  The  moral  law  is  growing  flexible  with 
use,  and  parts  of  it,  like  the  Blue  Laws  of  Connecticut, 
are  already  out  of  date.  See  to  it  that  it  is  not  so  with 
you.  In  any  contest  fair  play  is  better  than  victory.  The 
essence  of  success  is  fair  play. 

As  honest  men  and  women,  you  will  often  find  your- 
selves in  opposition  to  those  who  regard  themselves  as 
leaders  of  reform.  *  A  cause  founded  on  sentiment,  even 
though  it  be  righteous  sentiment,  cannot  succeed  all  at 
once,  and  never,  unless  controlled  by  wisdom.  Political 
expediency  may  be  a  wiser  guide  than  feeling  alone. 
There  is  some  truth  in  the  paradox  that  sentimentality  in 
politics  is  more  dangerous  than  venality,  and  that  the 
venal  man  is  our  safeguard  against  the  idealist  and  enthu- 
siast.    Venality,  with  all  its  evils,  is  conservative,  hence 

*  Professor  H.  H.  Powers  has  said  :  "A  knowledge  of  the  magnitude  and 
complexity  of  the  causes  of  social  phenomena  tends  to  disparage  panaceas 
and  all  hasty  efforts  for  social  improvement.  However  much  we  may  believe 
in  the  control  of  social  evolution  by  reason  and  human  effort,  a  study  of 
society  cannot  but  convince  us  that  changes  must  be  slow  to  be  either  whole- 
some or  permanent,  and  that  effort  spent  on  merely  proximate  causes  is 
ineffectual.  These  conclusions  are  not  agreeable  to  those  who  organize  cru- 
sades. It  is  one  of  the  painful  incidents  of  science  that  the  student  is  so 
often  called  upon  to  part  company  with  the  reformer.  The  fervid  appeals  and 
enthusiastic  championship  by  which  he  seeks  to  enlist  men  into  a  gjand 
reforming  mob  grate  harshly  on  the  ears  of  one  who  sees  the  difficulties  of 
bettering  society,  while  the  other  sees  only  its  desirability.  After  a  few  vain 
attempts  to  inoculate  a  little  science  into  these  reformers  while  they  are 
charging  at  double-quick,  the  student  is  apt  to  give  up  the  attempt  and  to 
seem  henceforth  unfiriendly  to  reform." 


'' laissez-faire:'  93 

opposed  to  ill-considered  action.  '  ^Laissez-faire ' '  is  now 
a  discredited  principle.  It  is  no  longer  possible  to  let 
things  take  their  course  when  so  many  men  try  to  find 
out  what  is  right,  and  use  every  effort  to  bring  it  about. 
But  we  must  remember  that  men  can  do  only  what  is 
possible.  All  unscientific  or  sentimental  tinkering  with 
society,  and  law,  and  government  is  still  "/aisse2-/aire." 
The  blind  effort  to  do  the  impossible  effects  nothing.  It 
is  only  the  whirl  of  the  water  in  the  eddy  of  the  stream, 
which  in  no  way  hastens  or  changes  its  flow.  Man  must 
first  learn  the  direction  of  the  currents.  The  efforts 
he  puts  forth  must  be  in  harmony  with  these  currents, 
else  his  labors  may  hinder,  and  not  help,  real  progress. 
The  opposite  of  laissez-faire  is  not  action  simply,  but 
action  based  on  knowledge. 

To  be  known  as  an  apostle  or  as  the  devotee  of  some 
special  idea,  often  prevents  a  man  from  learning  or  from 
growing.  The  apostle  fears  to  confuse  his  mind  with 
the  results  of  the  study  of  social  forces.  The  scholar 
cannot  ignore  these  forces,  and  must  be  prepared  to 
reckon  with  each  one.  But  this  does  not  justify  indiffer- 
ence or  obstruction.  Wisdom  and  sobriety  arise  from 
the  efforts  of  wise  and  sober  men.  Wise  and  sober  you 
should  be,  if  you  are  rightiy  educated. 

Not  all  of  you  will  leave  your  names  as  a  legacy  to 
your  country's  history.  The  alumni  roll  of  your  Alma 
Mater  may  be  at  last  the  only  list  that  remembers  you; 
but  if  you  have  been  a  center  of  right  living  and  right 
thinking,  if  the  character  of  your  neighbors  is  the  better 
for  your  having  lived,  your  life  mission  will  have  been 
fulfilled.  No  man  or  woman  can  do  more  than  that. 
**  True  piety, ' '  as  you  have  heard  to-day,  ' '  consists  in 


94        THE   SCHOLAR    IN    THE   COMMUNITY. 

reverence  for  the  gods  and  help  to  men.*  Therefore 
help  men.  Seek  that  spiritual  utilitarianism  whose  creed 
is  social  perfection,  and  foster  that  intelligent  patriotism 
which  chastens  because  it  loves. ' ' 

•  Professor  George  Elliott  Howard. 


VI. 

THE    SCHOOL    AND    THE  STATE.* 

THE  very  essence  of  republicanism  is  popular  educa- 
tion. There  is  no  virtue  in  the  acts  of  ignorant 
majorities,  unless  by  dint  of  repeated  action  the  ma- 
jority is  no  longer  ignorant.  The  very  work  of  ruling 
is  in  itself  education.  As  Americans,  we  believe  in  gov- 
ernment by  the  people.  This  is  not  that  the  people  are 
the  best  of  rulers,  but  because  a  growth  in  wisdom  is  sure 
to  go  with  an  increase  in  responsibility. 

The  voice  of  the  people  is  not  the  voice  of  God;  but 
if  this  voice  be  smothered,  it  becomes  the  voice  of  the 
demon.  The  red  flag  of  the  anarchist  is  woven  where 
the  people  think  in  silence.  In  popular  government,  it 
has  been  said,  ignorance  has  the  same  right  to  be  repre- 
sented as  wisdom.  This  may  be  true,  but  the  perpetuity 
of  such  government  demands  that  this  fact  of  represen- 
tation should  help  to  transform  ignorance  into  wisdom. 
Majorities  are  generally  wrong,  but  only  through  the  ex- 
perience of  their  mistakes  is  the  way  opened  to  the  per- 
manent establishment  of  right.  The  justification  of  the 
experiment  of  universal  suffrage  is  the  formation  of  a 
training-school  in  civics,  which,  in  the  long  run,  will  bring 
about  good  government. 

Our  fathers  built  for  the  future  —  a  future  even  yet 
unrealized.     America  is  not,   has  never  been,   ihe  best 

•  Address  given  on  Charter  Day  of  the  University  of  California,  at  Berkeley, 
March,  1893. 


96  THE   SCHOOL    AND    THE    STATE. 

governed  of  civilized  nations.  The  iron-handed  dictator- 
ship of  Germany  is,  in  its  way,  a  better  government  than 
our  people  have  ever  given  us.  That  is,  it  follows  a  more 
definite  and  consistent  policy.  Its  affairs  of  state  are  con- 
ducted with  greater  economy,  greater  intelligence,  and 
higher  dignity  than  ours.  It  is  above  the  influence  of 
the  two  arch-enemies  of  the  American  State  —  the  cor- 
ruptionist  and  the  spoilsman.  If  this  were  all,  we  might 
welcome  a  Bismarck  as  our  ruler,  in  place  of  our  succes- 
sion of  weak-armed  and  short-lived  Presidents. 

But  this  is  not  all.  It  is  not  true  in  a  changing  world 
that  that  government  "which  is  best  administered  is 
best."  This  is  the  maxim  of  tyranny.  Good  government 
may  be  a  matter  of  secondary  importance  even.  Our 
government  by  the  people  is  for  the  people's  growth. 
It  is  the  great  training-school  in  governmental  methods, 
and  in  the  progress  which  it  insures  lies  the  certain  pledge 
of  better  government  in  the  future.  This  pledge,  I 
believe,  enables  us  to  look  with  confidence  on  the  gravest 
of  political  problems,  problems  which  other  nations  have 
never  solved,  and  which  can  be  faced  by  no  statesman- 
ship other  than 

"The  right  divine  of  man, 
The  million  trained  to  be  free." 

And,  in  spite  of  all  reaction  and  discouragement,  every 
true  American  feels  that  this  trust  in  the  future  is  no  idle 
boast. 

But  popular  education  has  higher  aims  than  those  in- 
volved in  intelligent  citizenship.  No  country  can  be 
truly  well  governed  in  which  any  person  is  prevented, 
either  by  interference  or  by  neglect,  from  making  the 
most  of  himself     "  Of  all  state  treasures,"  says  Andrew 


THE    DUTY    OF    THE    STATE.  97 

D.  White,  "the  genius  and  talent  of  citizens  is  the  most 
precious.  It  is  a  duty  of  society  to  itself,  a  duty  which 
it  cannot  throw  off,  to  see  that  the  stock  of  talent  and 
genius  in  each  generation  may  have  a  chance  for  develop- 
ment, that  it  may  be  added  to  the  world's  stock  and 
aid  in  the  world's  work. ' ' 

This  truth  was  recognized  to  its  fullest  degree  by  the 
founders  of  our  Government,  and  so  from  the  very  first 
provision  was  made  for  popular  education.  The  wisdom 
of  this  provision  being  recognized,  our  inquiry  is  this : 
How  far  should  the  State  go  in  this  regard?  Should 
popular  education  cease  with  the  primary  schools,  or  is  it 
the  duty  of  the  State  to  maintain  all  parts  of  the  educa- 
tional system  —  primary  schools,  secondary  schools,  col- 
leges, technical  and  professional  schools,  and  the  schools 
of  instruction  through  investigation,  to  which  belong  the 
name  of  university  ? 

There  have  been  from  time  immemorial  two  schools  in 
political  economy  —  two  opposite  tendencies  in  the  ad- 
ministration of  government;  the  one  to  magnify,  the 
other  to  reduce  the  power  and  responsibility  of  the  State. 
The  one  would  regard  the  State  as  simply  the  board  of 
police.  Its  chief  function  is  the  administration  of  justice. 
In  other  matters  it  would  stay  its  hands,  leaving  each 
man  or  institution  to  work  out  its  own  destiny  in  the 
struggle  for  existence.  The  weaker  yield,  the  stronger 
move  on.  Progress  must  come  from  the  inevitable  sur- 
vival of  the  fittest  ' '  Laissez-faire, ' '  (let  it  alone)  is  the 
motto,  in  all  times  and  conditions. 

The  opposite  tendency  is  to  make  the  State  not  just, 
but  benevolent.    In  its  extreme  the  State  would  become  a 
sort  of  generous  uncle  to  every  man  within  it.     It  would 
If 


98  THE  SCHOOL    AND    THE   STATE. 

feed  the  hungry,  clothe  the  needy,  furnish  work  for  the 
idle,  bounties  for  those  engaged  in  losing  business,  and 
protection  for  those  who  feel  too  keenly  the  competition 
inherent  in  the  struggle  for  existence.  It  would  make  of 
the  State  a  gigantic  trust,  in  which  all  citizens  might  take 
part,  and  by  which  all  should  be  lifted  from  the  reach  of 
poverty  by  official  tugging  at  the  common  boot-strap. 

Somewhere  between  these  two  extremes,  I  believe, 
lies  the  line  of  a  just  policy.  Aristotle  says  that  "it  is 
the  duty  of  the  state  to  accomplish  every  worthy  end 
which  it  can  reach  better  than  private  enterprise  can  do. ' ' 
Accepting  this  view  of  the  State's  duty,  let  us  see  to 
what  extent  education  comes  within  its  function.  Edu- 
cation is  surely  a  worthy  object.  Mill  says:  "In  the 
matter  of  education,  the  intervention  of  government  is 
justifiable,  because  the  case  is  not  one  in  which  the 
interest  and  judgment  of  the  consumer  are  a  sufficient 
security  for  the  goodness  of  the  commodity. ' ' 

In  other  words,  unless  the  State  take  the  matter  in 
hand  and  make  provision  for  something  better,  a  cheap 
or  poor  article  of  education  may  be  furnished,  to  the  in- 
jury of  the  people.  This  authority  of  the  State  over  the 
lower  schools  has  been  jealously  guarded  by  the  Ameri- 
can people,  and  the  result  of  this  care  has  been  one  of  the 
chief  objects  of  our  national  pride.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  higher  schools,  and  to  a  still  greater  degree  the  pro- 
fessional schools,  of  America,  have  been  allowed  to  shift 
for  themselves,  in  accordance  with  the  doctrine  of  "  laissez- 
faire.^^     What  has  been  the  result? 

"The  common  school  is  the  hope  of  our  country." 
So  we  all  agree,  and  this  sentence  stands  on  the  letter- 
heads of  half  of  the  school  officers  in  the  West.     It  is 


THE    VOICE   OF   THE  MOB.  99 

the  common-school  education  that  elevates  our  masses 
above  the  dignity  of  a  mob.  Such  slight  knowledge  at 
least  is  essential  to  the  coherence  of  the  State. 

"An  illiterate  mass  of  men,  large  or  small,"  says  Presi- 
dent White,  "  is  a  mob.  If  such  a  mob  had  a  hundred 
millions  of  heads  —  if  it  extends  from  ice  to  coral,  it  is 
none  the  less  a  mob  :  and  the  voice  of  a  mob  has  been  in 
all  time  evil;  for  it  has  ever  been  the  voice  of  a  tyrant, 
conscious  of  power,  unconscious  of  responsibility." 

"The  great  republics  of  antiquity  and  of  the  medieval 
period  failed,"  he  continues,  "for  want  of  that  enlight- 
enment which  could  enable  their  citizens  to  appreciate 
free  institutions  and  maintain  them.  Most  of  the  great 
e/Torts  for  republican  institutions  in  modem  times  have 
been  drowned  in  unreason,  fanaticism,  anarchy,  and  blood. 
No  sense  of  responsibility  can  be  brought  to  bear  on  a 
mob.  It  passes  at  one  bound  from  extreme  credulity 
toward  demagogues  to  extreme  skepticism  towards  states- 
men; from  mawkish  sympathy  towards  criminals  to  blood- 
thirsty ferocity  against  the  innocent,  from  the  wildest 
rashness  to  the  most  abject  fear.  To  rely  on  a  constitu- 
tion to  control  such  a  mob  would  be  like  relying  on  a 
cathedral  organ  to  still  the  fury  of  a  tornado.  Build  your 
constitution  as  lordly  as  you  may,  let  its  ground-tone  of 
justice  be  the  most  profound,  let  its  utterances  of  human 
right  be  trumpet-tongued,  let  its  combination  of  checks 
and  balances  be  the  most  subtle,  yet  what  statesman  shall 
so  play  upon  its  mighty  keys  as  to  still  the  howling 
tempest  of  party  spirit,  or  sectional  prejudice,  or  race 
hatreds,  sweeping  through  an  iUiterate  mob  crowding  a 
continent  ? ' ' 

The  reformer  Zwingli  saw  three  hundred  years  ago 


loo  THE  SCHOOL    AND    THE   STATE. 

that  Protestantism  meant  popular  education,  and  popular 
education  meant  republicanism.  It  meant  popular  edu- 
cation because  the  recognition  of  the  right  of  the  indi- 
vidual to  form  his  own  opinions  made  it  the  duty  of  the 
state  to  give  him  the  means  of  making  these  opinions 
intelligent.  It  meant  republicanism,  because  the  right 
of  private  interpretation  in  religion  gave  the  people  the 
right  to  opinions  of  their  own  in  matters  of  politics. 
Where  the  people  have  a  mind,  they  must,  sooner  or 
later,  have  a  voice. 

Long  ago,  at  the  end  of  the  war,  Edmund  Kirke  told 
us,  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  the  story  of  the  life  of  a  brave 
but  unlettered  scout,  who  served  in  Garfield's  army  in 
Southern  Kentucky — John  Jordan,  "from  the  head 
of  Bayne. '  *  *  The  story,  which  was  a  true  one,  was 
designed  to  furnish  a  sort  of  running  parallel  between 
the  lives  of  two  brave  and  God-fearing  men,  supposed  to 
be  equal  in  ability,  and  equally  lowly  in  birth.  The  one 
wore  the  general's  epaulets,  and  still  later,  as  we  know, 
he  became  President  of  the  United  States,  known  and 
honored  of  all  men.  The  other  wore  the  rough  home- 
spun garb  of  the  scout,  and  now  that  the  war  is  over,  he 
lies  in  an  unknown  grave  in  the  Cumberland  Mountains. 
And  this  difference,  so  the  story  tells  us,  lay  in  this: 
"The  free  schools  which  Ohio  gave  the  one,  and  of  which 
Kentucky  robbed  the  other!  "  "  Plant  a  free  school  on 
every  Southern  cross-road, ' '  says  Edmund  Kirke,  ' '  and 
every  Southern  Jordan  will  become  a  Garfield.  Then, 
and  not  till  then,  will  the  Union  be  redeemed. ' ' 

And  so  this  is  no  idle  phrase,  * '  The  common  school 
is  the  hope  of  our  country, ' '   and  its  maintenance  is  a 

•The  Bayne  is  a  small  tributary  .of  Licking  River,  in  Kentucky. 


THE   HOPE   OF  OUR    COUNTRY.  loi 

worthy  object  which  the  statesmanship  of  the  people 
must  not  neglect.  It  is  something  by  which  all  citizens 
are  helped;  for  in  the  end  all  interests  are  touched  by  it. 

It  is  too  late  to  ask  in  America  whether  this  result 
could  be  reached  in  no  other  way.  Private  benevolence, 
private  enterprise,  the  interest  of  religious  bodies, —  none 
of  these  has  been  trusted  by  the  American  people  as  a 
substitute  for  its  own  concerted  action.  In  the  early  his- 
tory of  the  West,  Judge  David  D.  Banta  tells  us,  "There 
were  two  red  rags  that  required  but  little  shaking  to  in- 
flame the  populace.  One  of  these  was  sectarianism;  the 
other,  aristocracy."  Our  young  democracy  was  in  con- 
stant fear  lest  one  or  the  other  of  these  evil  influences 
should  enter  and  dominate  its  schools. 

And  even  now,  while  the  early  prejudices  have  in  great 
part  passed  away,  our  people  are  especially  jealous  of  any 
attempt  on  the  part  of  any  organization  to  turn  the 
schools  to  its  own  ends.  No  church  can  touch  them, 
and  ultimately  they  are  beyond  the  reach  of  any  political 
party.  Religion,  morality,  politics  even,  may  be  taught 
in  them,  but  in  the  interest  of  religion,  morality,  and 
politics  alone  —  not  to  advance  any  political  party  or  to 
increase  the  following  of  any  religious  sect  or  coalition 
of  sects.  In  no  matter  is  there  greater  unanimity  of 
feeling  among  our  people  than  in  this,  and  he  must  be 
an  ardent  partisan,  indeed,  who  does  not  feel  it  and 
respect  it 

From  another  quarter  we  hear  this  objection  to  popu- 
lar education :  The  public  schools  render  the  poor  dis- 
contented with  poverty.  The  child  of  the  common 
laborer  is  vmwilling  to  remain  common.  The  pride  of 
Merrie  England  used  to  lie  in  this,  that  each  peasant  and 


I02  THE   SCHOOL    AND    THE  STATE. 

workman  was  contented  to  be  peasant  and  workman. 
To  those  who  inherited  the  good  things  of  the  realm,  it 
was  a  constant  pleasure  to  see  the  masses  below  them 
contented  to  remain  there. 

But  popular  education  breaks  down  the  barriers  of 
caste,  and  therefore  increases  the  restlessness  of  those 
shut  in  by  such  barriers.  The  respect  for  hereditary- 
rank  and  title  is  fast  disappearing,  even  in  conservative 
England,  to  the  great  dismay  of  those  who  have  no  claim 
to  respect  other  than  that  which  they  had  inherited. 

Nor  has  this  spirit  been  wanting  in  America.  My  own 
great-grandfather,  John  Elderkin  Waldo,  said  in  Tolland, 
Connecticut,  a  century  ago,  that  there  would  ' '  never  again 
be  good  times  in  New  England  till  the  laborer  once  more 
was  willing  to  work  all  day  for  a  sheep's  head  and 
pluck."  That  the  good  times  were  past  was  due,  he 
thought,  to  the  influence  of  "the  little  schoolhouses 
scattered  over  the  hills,  which  were  spreading  the  spirit 
of  sedition  and  equality. ' ' 

But  the  progress  of  our  country  has  been  along  the 
very  lines  which  this  good  man  so  dreaded.  The  spirit 
of  responsibility  fostered  by  the  little  schoolhouses  has 
become  our  surest  safeguard  against  sedition.  The  man 
who  is  intelligent  and  free  has  no  impulse  toward  sedi- 
tion, and  for  this  reason,  the  people  have  the  right  to  see 
that  every  child  shall  grow  up  intelligent  and  free.  They 
must  create  their  own  schools,  and  they  have  the  plain 
duty  to  themselves  in  making  education  free  to  make  it 
likewise  compulsory.  No  child  in  America  has  the  right 
to  grow  up  ignorant. 

So,  leaving  the  common  schools  to  the  State,  shall  the 
State's  work  stop  there?     Is  further  education  different 


THE    UNIVERSITY  A   PUBLIC  SCHOOL.     103 

in  its  relations  to  the  community  ?  Does  a  special  virtue 
attach  to  reading,  writing,  and  arithmetic  which  is  not 
found  in  literature,  philosophy,  history,  or  science  ?  And 
shall  the  State  give  only  the  first,  and  leave  the  others  to 
shift  for  themselves  ? 

In  Europe,  education  has  progressed  from  above  down- 
ward. From  the  first,  higher  education  has  been  under 
public  control,  and  the  maintenance  of  universities  is  a 
state  duty  which  few  have  ever  questioned.  The  struggle 
for  public  control  in  England  has  concerned  only  the 
lower  schools,  not  the  universities.  The  school  problem  in 
England  to-day  is  the  absurd  one  of  how  to  make  educa- 
tion compulsory  without  at  the  same  time  making  it  free. 

In  America  the  same  traditions  were  inherited,  and 
the  founding  of  the  first  colleges  on  a  basis  of  public 
funds  came  as  a  matter  of  course.  The  State  univer- 
sity, maintained  by  direct  taxation,  has  been  a  prominent 
factor  in  the  organization  of  each  State  of  the  Union 
outside  of  the  original  thirteen,  and  most  of  the  latter 
form  no  exception  to  the  rule.  And,  with  varying  for- 
tunes, the  growth  of  each  one  of  these  schools  has  kept 
pace  with  the  growth  of  the  commonwealth,  of  which  it 
forms  a  part. 

Eighty  years  ago,  when  ignorance  and  selfishness 
held  less  sway  in  our  legislatures  than  to-day,  because 
the  influence  of  a  few  men  of  ideas  was  proportion- 
ately greater,  the  Constitution  of  the  infant  State  of 
Indiana  provided  that:  "Whereas,  knowledge  and 
learning  generally  diffused  through  a  community  being 
essential  to  the  preservation  of  a  free  government,  and 
spreading  the  opportunities  and  advantages  of  education 
through  the  various  parts  of  the  country  being  highly 


I04  THE   SCHOOL   AND    THE   STATE. 

conducive  to  this  end,  it  shall  be  the  duty"  of  the 
General  Assembly  to  ' '  pass  such  laws  as  shall  be  calcu- 
lated to  encourage  intellectual,  scientifical  and  agricultural 
improvement,  by  allowing  rewards  and  immunities  for 
the  promotion  and  improvement  of  arts,  sciences, 
commerce,  manufactures,  and  natural  history,  and  to 
countenance  and  encourage  the  principles  of  humanity, 
industry,  and  morality."  To  these  ends  the  General 
Assembly  was  required  "to  provide,  by  law,  for  a  general 
system  of  education,  ascending  in  a  regular  gradation 
from  township  schools  to  a  State  university,  wherein 
tuition  shall  be  gratis  and  equally  free  to  all."  And 
all  this  was  guarded  by  a  further  provision  ' '  for  absolute 
freedom  of  worship,  and  that  no  religious  test  should 
ever  be  required  as  a  qualification  to  any  office  of  trust 
or  profit,"  in  the  State  of  Indiana. 

It  is  evident  from  this  that  the  pioneers  of  the  West 
regarded  the  colleges  as  essentially  public  schools  —  as 
much  so  as  the  township  schools, — and  that  no  idea  of 
separate  control  and  support  of  the  higher  institutions 
was  present  in  their  minds.  But  the  judgment  of  the 
fathers  is  ever  open  to  reconsideration.  That  the  last 
generation  thought  it  wise  that  the  State  should  provide 
for  higher  education  is  in  itself  no  argument.  What 
shall  be  our  answer  in  the  light  of  facts  to-day?  Let  us 
recall  the  words  of  Aristotle:  "  It  is  the  duty  of  the  state 
to  accomplish  every  worthy  end  which  it  can  reach  better 
than  private  effort  can  do." 

I  do  not  need  to  plead  for  the  value  of  higher  educa- 
tion. The  man  who  doubts  this  is  beyond  the  reach  of 
argument.  The  men  who  have  made  our  coimtry  are 
its  educated  men;   not  alone  its  college  graduates — for 


THE   MEJ^    WHO   MADE  AMERICA.  105 

there  is  no  special  virtue  in  a  college  diploma, — but  men 
of  broad  views  and  high  ideals,  to  give  which  is  the  end 
of  higher  education. 

Moses  Coit  Tyler,  of  Cornell  University,  has  said  that 
the  men  of  the  early  American  colleges  made  success  in 
the  Revolutionary  War  possible.  Discussing  the  effect 
of  the  higher  institutions  of  learning  on  colonial  life,  he 
observes:  "Still  another  effect  of  the  early  colleges  was 
on  the  political  union  and  freedom  of  the  colonies.  To 
them  we  are  indebted  for  American  liberty  and  independ- 
ence. The  colleges  educated  the  people  and  hastened 
the  advent  of  freedom  by  rearing  the  men  who  led  the 
colonists  in  their  uprising.  It  was  a  contest  of  brains 
ten  years  before  the  war.  The  colonies  sent  to  their 
congresses  representatives  who  began  issuing  state  papers 
in  which  the  King  and  Parliament  expected  to  find  crude 
arguments  and  railings.  They  were  astonished  to  find 
in  them,  however,  decency,  firmness,  and  wisdom,  solid- 
ity, reason,  and  sagacity.  Chatham  said:  'You  will  find 
nothing  like  it  in  the  world.  The  histories  of  Greece 
and  Rome  give  us  nothing  equal  to  it,  and  all  attempts 
to  force  servitude  on  such  a  people  will  be  useless.' 
And  these  men,"  continues  Mr.  Tyler,  "were  the  'boys' 
of  Harvard,  Yale,  Princeton,  Columbia,  and  William  and 
Mary." 

Dr.  Angell  has  lately  said  that  the  history  of  Iowa  is 
the  history  of  her  State  university.  The  greatness  of 
the  State  has  come  through  the  growth  of  the  men  the 
State  has  trained.  If  this  be  true  of  Iowa,  how  much 
more  is  it  true  of  Michigan,  Wisconsin,  and  Virginia, 
States  which  have  shown  more  liberality  toward  higher 
education  than  Iowa  has  yet  done. 


io6  THE  SCHOOL    AND    THE   STATE. 

"The  preliminary  education  which  many  of  our 
strongest  men  have  received,"  says  President  White, 
' '  leaves  them  simply  beasts  of  prey.  It  has  sharpened 
their  claws  and  whetted  their  tusks.  A  higher  educa- 
tion, whether  in  science,  literature,  or  history,  not  only 
sharpens  a  man's  faculties,  but  gives  him  new  exemplars 
and  ideals.  He  is  lifted  to  a  plane  from  which  he  can 
look  down  upon  success  in  corruption  with  the  scorn  it 
deserves.  The  letting-down  in  character  of  our  National 
and  State  councils,  has  notoriously  increased  just  as  the 
predominance  of  men  of  advanced  education  in  those 
councils  has  decreased.  President  Barnard's  admirable 
paper  showing  the  relatively  diminishing  number  of  men 
of  advanced  education  in  our  public  stations,  decade  by 
decade,  marks  no  less  the  rise,  decade  by  decade,  of 
material  corruption.  This  is  no  mere  coincidence.  There 
is  a  relation  here  of  cause  and  effect. ' ' 

The  common  school  is  the  hope  of  our  country.  In 
like  manner,  the  high  school  and  college  are  the  hope  of 
the  common  school,  and  the  university  the  hope  of  the 
college.  Each  part  of  the  system  depends  on  the  next 
higher  for  its  standards  and  for  its  inspiration.  From 
those  educated  in  the  higher  schools  the  teachers  in  the 
lower  must  come.  Lop  off  the  upper  branches  of  the 
tree,  and  the  sap  ceases  to  rise  in  its  trunk.  Cut  off  the 
higher  schools  from  the  educational  system,  and  its  growth 
and  progress  stop.  Weakness  at  the  head  means  paralysis 
of  the  members. 

In  the  early  days,  when,  as  Whittier  tells  us,  "the 
people  sent  their  wisest  men  to  make  the  public  laws, ' ' 
the  close  relation  of  higher  education  to  the  public  wel- 
fare was  recognized  by  all.     John  Adams  said:     "It  is 


THE    GROWTH    OF    COLLEGES.  107 

io  American  seminaries  of  learning  that  America  is  in- 
lebted  for  her  glory  and  prosperity." 

The  early  colleges  were  sustained,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
either  from  public  funds  or  from  voluntary  gifts,  in  which 
every  man  and  woman  took  part.  ' '  The  strongest  col- 
leges," says  Professor  Tyler  again,  "were  not  created 
by  foreign  patrons,  but  by  the  mass  of  the  people.  They 
were  the  children  of  poverty,  self-sacrifice,  and  toil.  Har- 
vard sprang  from  the  popular  heart.  In  its  early  days, 
the  families  of  all  the  colonies  were  invited  to  set  apart, 
each  person,  an  annual  donation  for  the  college,  a  peck 
of  com  or  twelvepence  in  money.  And  to  this  invita- 
tion all  responded  willingly." 

This  direct  connection  of  college  and  people  was  one 
of  constant  mutual  advantage.  It  intensified  the  public 
interest  in  higher  education,  while  it  constrained  the  col- 
lege to  shape  its  work  for  the  people's  good.  The  high 
esteem  accorded  to  the  colleges  led  wealthy  men  to  give 
them  their  attention.  So  it  became  with  time  the  fashion 
to  leave  money  by  bequest  to  the  colleges.  In  the  older 
States,  such  money  was  usually  given  to  the  schools 
already  established,  and,  through  repeated  bequests, 
some  of  these  became  comparatively  wealthy  and  inde- 
pendent of  the  aid  of  the  public  funds. 

In  the  West  and  South,  this  generosity  has  shown 
itself  rather  in  the  founding  of  new  institutions,  instead 
of  making  the  old  ones  strong.  As  the  little  towns  of 
the  forest  and  prairie  grew  into  great  cities,  so  it  was 
supposed  that,  through  some  hidden  force  of  vitality,  the 
littie  colleges  would  grow  into  great  universities.  This 
process  of  planting  without  watenng  has  gone  on  until 
the  whole  country  is  dotted  with  schools,  called  by  the 


io8  IHE   SCHOOL    AND    THE   STATE. 

name  of  college  or  university —  on  an  average  more  than 
a  dozen  to  each  State.  Some  of  these  are  well  endowed, 
more  ill  endowed,  and  most  not  endowed  at  all.  But 
rich  or  poor,  weak  or  strong,  each  one  serves  in  some 
way  to  perpetuate  its  founder's  ideas  and  to  preserve  his 
name  from  oblivion. 

Many  of  these  are  honored  names,  the  names  of  men 
who  have  loved  learning  and  revered  wisdom,  and  who 
have  wished  to  help,  in  the  only  way  possible  to  them, 
toward  the  discovery  and  dissemination  of  truth.  Other 
names  there  are  which  can  be  honored  only  when  the 
personality  of  their  possessor  is  forgotten,  men  whose 
highest  motive  has  been  to  secure  a  monument,  more 
conspicuous,  if  not  more  enduring,  than  brass.  The  col- 
lege founded  by  rich  men,  and  obliged  to  depend  on  the 
gifts  of  rich  men  for  its  continuance,  is  sometimes,  though 
not  always,  forced  into  degrading  positions  on  account 
of  favors  received  or  favors  expected.  The  officers  of 
more  than  one  of  our  colleges  dare  scarcely  claim  their 
souls  as  their  own  for  fear  of  offending  some  wealthy 
patron.  There  is  a  college  in  New  England  of  old  and 
honored  name,  in  which  to-day  the  faculty  go  about  with 
bated  breath  for  fear  of  offending  two  wealthy  spinsters 
in  the  town,  whose  money  the  college  hopes  to  receive. 

This  growing  dependence  on  the  large  gifts  of  a  few 
men  tends  to  carry  our  colleges  farther  and  farther  from 
the  people.  A  school  supported  wholly  by  the  interest 
on  endowments  too  often  has  little  care  for  public  opin- 
ion, and  hence  has  little  incentive  to  use  its  influence 
toward  right  opinions.  Too  often  it  ceases  to  respond 
to  the  spirit  of  the  times.  The  Zeitgeist  passes  it  by. 
It  becomes  the  headquarters  of  conservatism,  and  withm 


A    BATH   OF    THE   PEOPLE.  109 

its  walls  ancient  methods  and  obsolete  modes  of  thought 
are  perpetuated.  Such  colleges  need  what  Lincoln  called 
a  "  bath  of  the  people  "  — a  contact  with  that  humanity 
for  whose  improvement  the  college  exists,  and  which  it 
should  be  the  mission  of  the  college  to  elevate  and  inspire. 
Endowments,  independent  of  popular  influence,  may  be- 
come fatal  to  aggressiveness  and  to  inspiration,  however 
much  they  may  give  of  material  aid  to  the  work  of  in- 
vestigation. 

It  is  not  a  misfortune  to  a  college  that  it  should  be 
dependent  on  the  will  of  the  people  it  serves.  The  pio- 
neer school  in  the  education  of  women  (Mount  Holyoke 
Seminary),  has  to  this  day  neither  patron  nor  great  en- 
dowment Its  founder  was  a  woman,  rich  only  in  zeal, 
who  gave  all  that  she  had — her  life — to  the  cause  of  the 
education  of  girls.  Mary  Lyon's  appeal  was  not  to  a  few 
rich  men  to  give  a  hundred  thousand  apiece,  the  pro- 
ceeds of  some  successful  deal  in  stocks  or  margins,  but  to 
the  farmers,  clergymen,  mechanics,  and  shopkeepers  of 
New  England  to  give  each  the  little  he  could  spare.  The 
prayers,  and  tears,  and  good  wishes,  and  scanty  dollars 
of  thousands  of  good  people  gave  to  this  school  of  faith 
and  hope  a  most  substantial  foundation. 

Huber  says  of  the  University  of  Oxford,  that  when  it  had 
neither  buildings  nor  land,  "its  intellectual  importance 
was  fully  acknowledged."  When  it  received  vast  privi- 
leges, and  vast  endowments,  its  intellectual  prominence 
was  obscured  by  the  growth  of  forms,  conventionalities, 
and  sinecures.  It  became  the  stronghold  of  conserva- 
tism, of  reaction  against  modem  civilization  and  modern 
science. 

Darwin  speaks  of  the  instruction  in  the  English  uni- 


no  THE  SCHOOL   AND    THE  STATE. 

versities  in  his  time  as  "  incredibly  dull,"  and  in  almost 
all  of  their  departments  an  absolute  waste  of  the  student's 
time.  "  Half  of  the  professors  of  Oxford,"  said  a  grad- 
uate of  one  of  its  colleges  to  me  only  a  few  days  ago, 
"live  on  their  stipends  and  simply  soak."  The  strug- 
gle for  existence  is  the  basis  of  progress.  Let  all  the 
professors  in  a  university  be  placed  beyond  the  reach  of 
this  struggle,  and  the  influence  of  the  university  rapidly 
deteriorates.  It  is  a  law  of  nature,  from  which  nothing 
can  escape.  Whatever  is  alive  must  show  a  reason  for 
living. 

Not  long  ago  Dr.  DoUinger  said  in  the  University  of 
Munich  that  there  was  not  in  all  America  a  school  which 
rose  to  the  rank  of  a  third-rate  German  university.  This 
may  be  true,  so  far  as  privileges  and  endowments  go,  for 
the  wolf  is  close  to  the  door  of  even  our  richest  colleges. 
But  the  usefulness  of  the  college  is  not  gauged  by  its  size, 
nor  by  its  material  equipment.  Ernst  Haeckel,  profes- 
sor in  the  third-class  University  of  Jena,  tells  us  that  the 
amount  of  original  investigation  actually  done  in  a  uni- 
versity is  usually  in  inverse  ratio  to  the  completeness 
and  costliness  of  its  equipments.  In  this  paradox  there 
is  a  basis  of  truth. 

We  speak  too  often  of  the  university  and  of  its  pow- 
ers or  needs,  as  though  the  school  were  a  separate  crea- 
ture, existing  for  its  own  sake.  The  university  exists 
only  in  the  teachers  which  compose  it  and  direct  its  ac- 
tivities. It  exists  for  the  benefit  of  its  students,  and 
through  them  for  the  benefit  of  the  community,  in  the  ex- 
tension of  culture  and  the  increase  in  the  sum  of  human 
knowledge.  Its  only  gain  is  in  makmg  this  benefit  greater; 
its  only  loss  is  in  the  diminution  or  deterioration  of  its 


THE    WINDS    OF   FREEDOM.  in 

influence.  All  questions  of  wealth  and  equipment  are 
wholly  subsidiary  to  this.  The  value  of  the  university, 
then,  is  not  in  proportion  to  its  bigness,  but  to  its  inspi- 
ration. The  Good  Spirit  cares  not  for  the  size  of  its 
buildings  or  the  length  of  its  list  of  professors  or  stu- 
dents. It  only  asks,  in  the  words  of  the  old  reformer, 
Ulrich  von  Hiitten,  if  '■'die  Luft  der  Freiheit  wehtf  — 
whether  "the  winds  of  freedom  are  blowing." 

Doubtless,  wealthy  men  would  grade  our  roads,  build 
our  courthouses,  conduct  our  courts  —  do  anything  for 
the  public  good, —  if  the  State  should  neglect  these  mat- 
ters, or  turn  them  over  to  private  hands.  But  this  would 
not  release  the  people  from  their  duty  in  this  matter. 
The  people  have  safety  only  in  independence.  ' '  There 
is,"  says  President  White,  "no  system  more  unrepubH- 
can  than  that  by  which  a  nation  or  a  State,  in  considera- 
tion of  a  few  hundreds  or  thousands  of  dollars,  delivers 
over  its  system  of  advanced  instruction  to  be  controlled 
and  limited  by  the  dogmas  and  whims  of  living  donors 
or  dead  testators.  In  more  than  one  nation  dead  hands, 
stretching  out  from  graves  closed  generations  gone,  have 
lain  with  a  deadly  chill  upon  institutions  for  advanced 
instruction  during  centuries.  More  than  one  institution 
in  our  own  country  has  felt  its  grip  and  chill.  If  we  ought 
to  govern  ourselves  in  anything,  it  ought  to  be  in  this." 
We  should  trust  the  people  to  judge  their  own  needs, 
and  should  have  faith  that  eventually  no  real  need  will 
be  left  unsatisfied. 

But  may  we  not  depend  upon  the  interests  of  some  one 
or  more  of  our  religious  organizations  to  furnish  the  means 
of  higher  education  ?  One  of  our  great  religious  bodies, 
at  least,  stands  ready  to  relieve  the  State  of  all  responsi- 


112  THE   SCHOOL    AND    THE   STATE. 

bility  for  education,  higher  or  lower,  if  it  may  be  allowed 
to  educate  in  its  own  way.  But  the  people  are  not  will- 
ing that  this  should  be  so.  They  believe  that  the  public 
school  should  be  free  from  all  sectarian  influences  of 
whatever  sort.  The  other  religious  bodies  in  our  midst, 
for  the  most  part,  disclaim  all  desire,  as  well  as  all  power, 
to  provide  for  lower  education,  preferring  to  spend  their 
strength  on  the  higher.  This  is  apparently  not  on  ac- 
count of  the  superior  importance  of  collegiate  education, 
nor  because  denominational  influences  are  stronger  on 
young  men  than  on  boys.  It  is  simply  because  a  college 
is  less  expensive,  and  can  be  more  definitely  controlled 
than  can  a  system  of  lower  schools. 

I  shall  have  little  to  say  on  the  subject  of  denomina- 
tional colleges,  and  nothing  by  way  of  criticism.  If  they 
do  not  stand  in  the  way  of  schools  of  higher  purpose 
and  better  equipment,  they  can  do  no  harm.  If  again, 
like  Yale  and  Harvard,  they  become  transformed  into 
schools  of  the  broadest  purpose,  they  cease  to  be,  whether 
in  name  or  not,  denominational,  but  become,  in  fact,  schools 
of  the  State.  Very  many  of  the  denominational  schools 
have  been  well  equipped  and  well  manned,  and  have 
fought  a  good  fight  for  sound  learning,  as  well  as  for  the 
belief  which  their  founders  have  deemed  correct.  But 
in  too  many  of  them  the  zeal  of  the  founders  has  out- 
run their  strength,  and  a  pretense  of  doing  on  the  part 
of  a  few  half-starved  professors  has  taken  the  place  of 
real  performance. 

It  is  certainly  fair  to  say  this  of  all  the  denominational 
colleges  of  America:  The  higher  education  of  youth, 
pure  and  simple,  is  not,  cannot  be,  their  chief  object. 
Such  schools  are  founded  primarily  to  promote  the  growth 


THE    COLLEGE   OF   THE  CHURCH         113 

and  preservation  of  certain  religious  organizations.  This 
is  a  worthy  object,  as  all  must  admit;  but  this  purpose 
we  recognize  as  something  other  than  simply  education. 

I  read  not  long  ago  an  appeal  from  the  president  of 
one  of  our  best  denominational  colleges.  Its  burden 
was  this:  "  Unless  you  are  willing  to  see  our  church  dis- 
appear from  the  West,  do  not  let  our  college  die."  This 
recognizes  the  ultimate  function  of  the  denominational 
college.  The  church  depends  upon  it  for  its  educated 
men.  It  should  furnish  the  leaders  for  the  church;  and 
the  better  trained  these  leaders  are,  the  better  for  all  the 
people. 

But  this  phase  of  education  is  not  the  State's  work; 
and  so  no  private  school  or  church  school  can  enter  the 
State's  scheme  of  education.  To  do  the  State's  work, 
the  denominational  school  must  cease  to  do  its  own ;  for 
no  organization  can  be  allowed  to  color  the  water  in  the 
fountains  of  popular  education.  Our  bill  of  rights,  the 
State  Constitution,  recognizes  the  equal  rights  of  all  men, 
whatever  their  religious  belief  or  preferences.  This  could 
not  be  the  fact,  if  the  scheme  for  higher  education  in- 
cluded sectarian  colleges  only;  and  all  schools  are  sec- 
tarian in  which  the  ruling  body  belongs  by  necessity  and 
by  right  to  some  particular  religious  denomination. 

If  the  State  have  any  duty  toward  higher  education, 
the  existence  of  denominational  colleges  does  not  release 
it  from  this  duty,  any  more  than  the  existence  of  Pinker- 
ton's  band  of  peacemakers  absolves  the  State  from  its 
duty  to  maintain  an  efficient  police  system.  It  is  the 
free  investigation  and  promulgation  of  truth  which  is  the 
function  of  the  university.  But  the  denominational  school 
must  also  stand  for  the  defense  of  certain  doctrines  as  the 


114  THE  SCHOOL    AND    THE   STATE. 

ultimate  truth.  The  highest  work  demands  absolute 
singleness  of  purpose.  The  school  cannot  serve  two 
masters;  and  the  school  maintained  for  the  special  work 
of  the  part  cannot  meet  the  needs  of  the  whole. 

The  most  unfortunate  feature  of  higher  education  in 
America  lies  in  the  universal  scattering  of  its  educational 
resources.  For  this  local  pride  and  denominational  zeal 
are  about  equally  responsible.  If  it  be  true,  as  Dr.  Bol- 
linger says,  that  among  our  four  hundred  American 
colleges  and  universities  there  is  not  one  worthy  to  rank 
with  the  least  of  the  eight  maintained  by  the  Kingdom 
of  Prussia,  whom  have  we  to  thank  for  this  ?  Not  our 
poverty,  for  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  and  Illinois 
are  not  poor,  even  in  comparison  with  Prussia;  not  our 
parsimony,  for  no  people  give  more  freely  than  we;  not 
our  youth,  for  more  than  half  these  schools  are  older 
than  the  great  University  of  Berlin.  It  has  been  this, 
and  this  alone  —  the  scattering  of  educational  funds,  pub- 
lic and  private,  at  the  demand  of  local  ambition  or  local 
jealousy.  It  has  been  the  creation  in  each  State  of  a  host 
of  little  colleges,  each  one  ambitious  to  control  the  higher 
education  of  its  vicinity,  and  each  one  more  or  less  defi- 
nitely standing  in  the  way  of  any  other  school  which 
might  rise  to  something  better.    Let  us  take  an  example: 

It  was  not  in  response  to  the  educational  needs  of  Kan- 
sas that  four  universities  were  founded  in  a  single  year  in 
one  of  its  real-estate  towns,  institutions  without  money 
and  without  credit,  whose  existence  can  be  only  one  long 
wail  for  help  from  the  rich  men  or  rich  denominations 
under  whose  patronage  they  are.  There  is  a  littie 
college  in  the  West,  almost  under  the  shadow  of  an  ex- 
cellent State  University,  which  for  years  sent  forth  its 


THE  SCATTERING    OF  RESOURCES.        115 

appeals  for  help  to  denominational  friends  in  the  East, 
on  the  ground  that  it  is  the  ' '  sole  educational  oasis ' '  in 
the  great  State  in  which  it  was  located.  We  have  not 
reached  the  end  of  this.  The  number  of  our  colleges 
has  doubled  within  the  last  thirty  years,  and  the  increase 
in  number  still  goes  on,  far  outrunning  the  rate  of  im- 
provement in  quality. 

"Within  the  last  twenty  years,"  said  President  White 
in  1874,  "I  have  seen  many  of  these  institutions,  and  I 
freely  confess  that  my  observations  have  saddened  me. 
Go  from  one  great  State  to  another,  and  you  shall  find 
that  this  unfortunate  system  has  produced  the  same 
miserable  results  —  in  the  vast  majority  of  our  States 
not  a  single  college  or  university  worthy  the  name;  only 
a  multitude  of  little  schools  with  pompous  names  and 
poor  equipments,  each  doing  its  best  to  prevent  the 
establishment  of  any  institution  broader  and  better.  The 
traveler  arriving  in  our  great  cities  generally  lands  in  a 
railway  station  costing  more  than  all  the  university 
edifices  of  the  State.  He  sleeps  in  a  hotel  in  which 
there  is  embanked  more  capital  than  in  the  entire  uni- 
versity endowment  for  millions  of  people.  He  visits 
asylums  for  lunatics,  idiots,  deaf,  dumb,  blind, —  nay, 
even  for  the  pauper  and  criminal, — and  finds  them 
palaces.  He  visits  the  college  buildings  for  young  men 
of  sound  mind  and  earnest  purpose,  the  dearest  treasures 
of  the  State,  and  he  generally  finds  them  rude  barracks. 

"Many  noble  men  stand  in  the  faculties  of  these  col- 
leges—  men  who  would  do  honor  to  any  institution  of 
advanced  learning  in  the  world.  These  men  of  ours 
would,  under  a  better  system,  develop  admirably  the 
intellectual  treasures  of  our  people  and   the  material 


ii6  THE  SCHOOL    AND    THE   STATE. 

resources  of  our  country;  but,  cramped  by  want  of 
books,  want  of  apparatus,  want  of  everything  needed 
in  advanced  instruction,  cramped  above  all  by  the  spirit 
of  this  system,  very  many  of  them  have  been  paralyzed." 

This  picture  is  by  no  means  so  dark  in  the  West 
to-day  as  it  was  twenty-five  years  ago.  And  the  reason 
for  this  is  to  be  found  in  the  rise  of  the  State  universities. 
These  schools  have  struggled  along  with  many  vari- 
ations of  fortune  until  within  the  last  few  years,  when 
success  has  come  to  every  one  of  them,  and  their  develop- 
ment has  become  the  most  striking  feature  in  our  recent 
educational  history. 

When  the  State  universities  cast  off  the  self-imposed 
fetters  of  the  conventional  college  and  took  their  place 
with  the  public  schools,  supported  by  the  public  money 
and  existing  for  the  public  good,  their  real  growth  began 
in  friends,  in  numbers,  in  equipment,  in  usefulness. 
What  they  have  deserved  they  have  received,  and  they 
will  receive  in  the  future.  It  requires  no  prophet  to 
foresee  that  before  the  middle  of  the  next  century  these 
creatures  of  the  public-school  system  will  be  the  centers 
of  the  chief  educational  forces  on  our  continent.  They 
will  cost  the  people  many  hundred  dollars,  perhaps,  for 
every  one  which  is  expended  now;  but  every  dollar  given 
to  higher  education  shall  bring  its  full  return.  The  great- 
ness of  the  State  is  measured  not  by  numbers  nor  by 
acres;  not  by  dollars  on  the  tax-roll,  but  by  the  wisdom 
of  its  people,  by  the  men  and  women  of  the  State  who 
have  learned  to  take  care  of  themselves. 

It  is  sometimes  proposed  to  treat  all  higher  education 
simply  as  a  matter  of  business.  Let  wisdom  be  sold  in 
the  open  market,  and  let  its  prices  be  ruled  by  the  laws 


THE    COMMERCIAL    BASIS.  117 

of  supply  and  demand.  The  college  professor  deals  in 
mental  wares,  as  the  shopkeeper  deals  in  material  com- 
modities. Let  him  fill  his  store  with  a  stock  which  the 
people  will  buy,  and  advertise  what  he  has,  as  the  shop- 
keeper does.  On  this  basis  he  will  not  carry  a  dead 
stock  long.  There  is  no  room  for  conservatism  in  com- 
merce. This  is  a  commercial  age,  and  professors  should 
govern  themselves  accordingly.  If  the  people  want  book- 
keeping or  dancing  instead  of  Latin  and  Greek,  they  can 
have  it.  If  the  people  retain  the  old  prejudice  in  favor 
of  classical  training,  they  can  have  classical  courses  of 
the  latest  Chautauqua  pattern,  all  in  English,  all  the 
play  left  in  and  all  the  work  left  out.  Busy  people  can 
then  attend  the  universities  without  interruption  of  their 
daily  work,  while  the  law  of  supply  and  demand  will 
regulate  everything.  Commerce  can  have  no  difficulty 
in  modernizing  the  curriculum.  The  latest  fashions 
might  be  quoted  in  education  as  well  as  in  millinery. 

This  could  have  no  result  except  to  cheapen  and  vul- 
garize the  college.  The  highest  need  is  not  the  need  of 
the  many;  still  less  is  it  the  multitude's  demand.  Inves- 
tigations without  immediate  pecuniary  result  would  find 
still  less  encouragement  than  now.  Vulgarity  is  the 
condition  of  satisfaction  with  inferior  things.  A  college 
dependent  each  day  on  the  day's  receipts  must  pander 
to  vulgarity.  And  vulgarity,  too,  is  said  to  be  the 
besetting  sin  of  democracy.  If  democracy  leads  to 
vulgarity,  it  defeats  its  own  ends.  The  justification  of 
popular  suffrage  is  to  make  the  multitude  better,  not  to 
bring  the  better  to  the  level  of  the  multitude.  The  many 
are  ready  only  for  the  rudiments.  The  teacher  of  ad- 
vanced subiects  would  starve  in  open  financial  competi- 


ii8  THE  SCHOOL    AND    THE    STATE. 

tion,  while  the  teacher  who  could  train  the  many  to  keep 
account-books  or  to  get  a  six-months'  license  would  be 
exalted.  \i,  on  the  other  hand,  the  fees  of  the  higher 
teacher  were  proportionately  increased,  only  the  rich 
could  make  use  of  him,  and  the  rich  would  find  their 
purposes  better  served  in  the  endowed  schools  of  other 
countries. 

The  demand  for  many  students  rather  than  good  ones, 
already  too  strong  in  our  colleges,  would  be  intensified, 
if  everything  were  left  to  business  competition.  The 
whole  category  of  advertising  dodges  known  to  the  deal- 
ers in  quack  medicines  or  ready-made  clothing  would 
become  a  permanent  part  of  our  higher  education.  A 
cheap  article  furnished  at  a  low  price  meets  with  a  won- 
derful sale.  We  do  not  need  to  trust  to  theory  in  this 
matter.  In  Indiana,  Ohio,  Illinois,  Iowa,  and  Kansas, 
are  some  two-score  private  schools  called  colleges.  These 
schools  are  run  without  endowment  or  equipment  on  the 
plan  of  free  competition,  and  for  the  purpose  of  making 
money.  One  has  not  to  visit  many  of  these  to  see  clearly 
what  would  be  the  result  of  trusting  higher  education 
solely  to  business  enterprise.  Any  form  of  educational 
charity,  private  gifts,  public  spirit,  denominational  zeal, 
anything  leads  to  better  results  than  this.  For  the  essence 
of  education  is  something  that  cannot  be  bought  and  sold. 
It  is  the  inspiration  of  character,  which  cannot  be  rated 
in  our  stock  exchanges. 

If  quick  sales  and  steady  profits  are  to  be  the  watch- 
word of  educational  progress,  the  student  of  the  future 
will  look  toward  Lebanon  and  Valparaiso,  rather  than  to- 
ward Johns  Hopkins  or  Harvard,  and  the  great  expendi- 
tures which  New  York,  and  Michigan,  and  Wisconsin, 


MANAGEMENT   BY    THE    PEOPLE.         119 

and  California  have  made  for  higher  education  will  be 
a  needless  waste. 

But  it  is  said  sometimes  that  the  State  cannot  properly 
manage  its  own  institutions.  Ignorance  and  venality  are 
often  dominant  in  public  affairs,  and  it  is  claimed  that 
work  undertaken  in  the  name  of  the  people  is  sure  to  be 
marred  by  ignorance,  affected  by  partisanship,  or  tainted 
by  jobbery.  The  first  professor  in  the  State  University 
of  Indiana,  Baynard  R.  Hall,  said  sixty-five  years  ago: 
* '  Nothing,  we  incline  to  believe,  can  ever  make  State 
schools  and  colleges  very  good  ones;  but  nothing  can 
make  them  so  bad  as  for  Uncle  Sam  to  leave  every  point 
open  to  debate,  especially  among  ignorant,  prejudiced, 
and  selfish  folks,  in  a  new  purchase. ' ' 

This  question  touches  the  very  foundation  of  popular 
government.  In  the  beginning,  as  a  rule,  the  affairs  of 
the  State  are  not  well  administered.  Many  trials  are 
made.  Many  blunders  are  committed  before  any  given 
piece  of  work  falls  into  the  hands  of  competent  men. 
But  mistakes  are  a  source  of  education.  Sooner  or  later 
the  right  men  will  be  found,  and  the  right  management 
of  a  public  institution  will  justify  itself.  What  is  well 
done  can  never  be  wholly  undone.  In  the  long  run,  few 
institutions  are  less  subject  to  partisan  influence  than  a 
State  school.  When  the  foul  grip  of  the  spoilsman  is 
once  unloosed,  it  can  never  be  restored.  In  the  evil  days 
which  befell  the  politics  of  Virginia,  when  the  fair  name 
of  the  State  was  traded  upon  by  spoilsmen  of  every  party, 
of  every  degree,  the  one  thing  in  the  State  never  touched 
by  them  was  the  honor  of  the  University  of  Virginia.  And 
amid  all  the  scandal  and  disorder  which  followed  our 
Civil  War,  what  finger  of  evil  has  been  laid  on  the  Smith- 


I20  THE   SCHOOL    AND    THE   STATE. 

sonian  Institution  or  the  Military  Academy  at  West  Point? 
On  that  which  is  intended  for  no  venal  end,  the  people 
will  tolerate  no  venal  domination.  In  due  time  the 
management  of  every  public  institution  will  be  abreast 
of  the  highest  popular  opinion.  Sooner  or  later  the 
wise  man  leads;  for  his  ability  to  lead  is  at  once  the  test 
and  proof  of  his  wisdom. 

Charities  under  public  control  result  badly,  not  because 
of  the  theory,  but  because  of  certain  relations  in  prac- 
tice. Their  bad  effects  tend  to  increase  and  perpetuate 
themselves,  because  every  organization  tends  to  magnify 
its  function;  and  the  sole  legitimate  function  of  public 
charity  is  to  make  public  charity  unnecessary.  State 
schools  are  not  good  at  first,  because  under  control  of 
unstable  forces.  They  tend  to  grow  better  and  better; 
for  they  tend  to  draw  these  forces  into  a  following.  All 
schools  tend  to  improve,  because  they  make  their  own 
following.  In  the  same  way  all  charities  tend  to  degen- 
erate, because  goodness  in  this  case  consists  in  being 
needed  just  as  little  as  possible.  Neither  schools  nor 
charities  are  industrial  investments,  and  they  are  not  sub- 
ject to  the  laws  which  govern  enterprises  for  profit. 

Methods  must  be  judged  by  their  results.  Co-opera- 
tion in  higher  education  is  always  legitimate,  because 
those  to  be  educated  have  not  the  money  which  great 
enterprises  cost.  Co-operation,  on  the  one  hand,  and  ap- 
preciation, on  the  other,  are  necessary  to  build  up  schools. 
In  similar  ways,  we  must  test  the  best  method  of  carry- 
ing out  any  enterprise.  Dr.  Amos  G.  Warner  says  that 
if  it  were  found  that  better  results  and  a  better  quality 
of  air  came  from  placing  the  atmosphere  in  private  hands, 
or  using  it  as  a  municipal  monopoly,  he  would  favor  do- 


CO-OPERATION   IN   EDUCATION  121 

ing  so.    Matters  of  this  kind  cannot  be  settled  by  theory, 
but  by  experiment. 

I  need  say  but  a  word  on  the  subject  of  appHed  educa- 
tion. 

Shall  the  people  provide  for  technical  or  professional 
training,  as  well  as  for  general  education?  My  answer 
is,  Yes;  for  no  other  agency  will  do  as  well  as  the  State 
the  work  that  should  be  done. 

Already  the  General  Government  has  recognized  the 
need  of  industrial  training,  and  has  made  liberal  provi- 
sion for  it.  Special  grants  of  land  and  money  have  been 
made  to  each  State  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  on  instruc- 
tion and  investigation  in  the  line  of  mechanics,  engineer- 
ing and  agriculture.  Each  State  has  accepted  this  trust, 
and  in  each  the  work  is  being  carried  out  with  fidehty 
and  with  success. 

My  conclusions  may  be  summed  up  in  a  few  words  : 

In  every  demand  the  people  make,  the  State  must  fur- 
nish the  means  for  satisfaction.  Whatever  schools  the 
State  may  need,  the  State  must  create  and  control. 

If  the  State  fails  to  furnish  the  means  of  education, 
higher  or  lower,  these  means  will  never  be  adequately 
furnished.  The  people  must  combine  to  do  this  work; 
for  in  the  long  run  no  other  agency  can  do  it.  Moreover, 
any  other  means  of  support,  sooner  or  later,  forms  the 
entering  wedge  between  the  schools  and  the  people. 

The  first  constitution  of  several  of  our  States  contained 
the  embodiment  of  educational  wisdom,  when  it  provided 
for  a  general  system  of  education,  ascending  in  regular 
gradation,  from  the  township  schools  to  the  State  univer- 
sity —  free  and  equal,  open  to  all,  and  equally  open  to  all 
forms  of  religious  belief 


122  THE  SCHOOL    AND    THE   STATE. 

The  State  of  California,  following  the  lead  of  Michi- 
gan, did  wisely  when  it  added  to  this  the  provision  for 
special  training  in  all  lines  of  technical  and  professional 
work  in  which  the  skill  or  the  wisdom  of  the  individual 
tends  toward  the  advantage  of  the  community  or  the 
State.  Its  next  duty  in  this  regard  is  to  make  this  pro- 
vision adequate,  that  these  professional  schools  may  be 
capable  of  doing  well  what  they  attempt  to  accomplish. 


VII. 
THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN. 

THE  subject  of  the  higher  training  of  young  women 
may  resolve  itself  into  three  questions: 

1 .  Shall  a  girl  receive  a  college  educaticni  f 

2.  Shall  she  receive  the  same  kind  of  a  college  ediua- 
Hon  as  a  boy  f 

3.  Shall  she  be  educated  in  the  same  college  f 

As  to  the  first  question:  It  must  depend  on  the  char- 
acter of  the  girl.  Precisely  so  with  the  boy.  What  we 
should  do  with  either  depends  on  his  or  her  possibilities. 
No  parents  should  let  either  boy  or  girl  enter  life  with 
any  less  preparation  than  the  best  they  can  give.  It  is 
true  that  many  college  graduates,  boys  and  girls  alike, 
do  not  amount  to  much  after  the  schools  have  done  the 
best  they  can.  It  is  true,  as  I  have  elsewhere  insisted, 
that  "you  cannot  fasten  a  two- thousand-dollar  education 
to  a  fifty-cent  boy," —  or  girl  either.  It  is  also  true  that 
higher  education  is  not  alone  a  question  of  preparing 
great  men  for  great  things.  It  must  prepare  even  little 
men  for  greater  things  than  they  would  otherwise  have 
found  possible.  And  so  it  is  with  the  education  of 
women.  The  needs  of  the  times  are  imperative.  The 
highest  product  of  social  evolution  is  the  growth  of  the 
civilized  home  —  the  home  that  only  a  wise,  cultivated, 

123 


124     THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF   WOMEN. 

and  high-minded  woman  can  make.  To  furnish  such 
women  is  one  of  the  worthiest  functions  of  higher  educa- 
tion. No  young  woman  capable  of  becoming  such  should 
be  condemned  to  anything  lower.  Even  with  those  who 
are  in  appearance  too  dull  or  too  vacillating  to  reach  any 
high  ideal  of  wisdom,  this  may  be  said  —  it  does  no 
harm  to  try.  A  few  hundred  dollars  is  not  much  to 
spend  on  an  experiment  of  such  moment.  Four  of  the 
best  years  of  one's  life  spent  in  the  company  of  noble 
thoughts  and  high  ideals  cannot  fail  to  leave  their 
impress.  To  be  wise,  and  at  the  same  time  womanly, 
is  to  wield  a  tremendous  influence,  which  may  be  felt  for 
good  in  the  lives  of  generations  to  come.  It  is  not  forms 
of  government  by  which  men  are  made  or  unmade.  It 
is  the  character  and  influence  of  their  mothers  and  their 
wives.  The  higher  education  of  women  means  more  for 
the  future  than  all  conceivable  legislative  reforms.  And 
its  influence  does  not  stop  with  the  home.  It  means 
higher  standards  of  manhood,  greater  thoroughness  of 
training,  and  the  coming  of  better  men.  Therefore,  let 
us  educate  our  girls  as  well  as  our  boys.  A  generous 
education  should  be  the  birthright  of  every  daughter  of 
the  republic  as  well  as  of  every  son. 

* 

2.    Shall  we  give  our  girls  the  same  education  as  our 

boys  f     Yes,  and  no.     If  we  mean  by  the  same  an  equal 

degree  of  breadth  and  thoroughness,  an  equal  fitness  for 

high  thinking  and  wise  acting,  yes,  let  it  be  the  same. 

If  we  mean  this:   Shall  we  reach  this  end  by  exactly  the 

same  course  of  studies?  then  my  answer  must  be,  No. 

For  the  same  course  of  study  will  not  yield  the  same 

results  with  different  persons.     The  ordinary  "college 


INDIVIDUAL     TRAINING.  125 

course"  which  has  been  handed  down  from  generation 
to  generation  is  purely  conventional.  It  is  a  result  of  a 
series  of  compromises  in  trying  to  fit  the  traditional  edu- 
cation of  clergymen  and  gentlemen  to  the  needs  of  men 
of  a  different  social  era.  The  old  college  course  met  the 
needs  of  nobody,  and  therefore  was  adapted  to  all  alike. 
The  great  educational  awakening  of  the  last  tA^-enty  years 
in  America  has  lain  in  breaking  the  bonds  of  this  old 
system.  The  essence  of  the  new  education  is  individual- 
ism. Its  purpose  is  to  give  to  each  young  man  that 
training  which  will  make  a  man  of  him.  Not  the  train- 
ing which  a  century  or  two  ago  helped  to  civilize  the 
mass  of  boys  of  that  time,  but  that  which  will  civilize 
this  particular  boy.  One  reason  why  the  college  stu- 
dents of  1895  ^re  ten  to  one  in  number  as  compared  with 
those  of  1875,  is  that  the  college  training  now  given  is 
valuable  to  ten  times  as  many  men  as  could  be  reached 
or  helped  by  the  narrow  courses  of  twenty  years  ago. 

In  the  university  of  to-day  the  largest  liberty  of  choice 
in  study  is  given  to  the  student  The  professor  advises, 
the  student  chooses,  and  the  flexibility  of  the  courses 
makes  it  possible  for  every  form  of  talent  to  receive 
proper  culture.  Because  the  college  of  to-day  helps  ten 
times  as  many  men  as  that  of  yesterday  could  hope  to 
reach,  it  is  ten  times  as  valuable.  This  difference  lies  in 
the  development  of  special  lines  of  work  and  in  the 
growth  of  the  elective  system.  The  power  of  choice 
carries  the  duty  of  choosing  rightly.  The  ability  to 
choose  has  made  a  man  out  of  the  college  boy  and  trans- 
ferred college  work  from  an  alternation  of  tasks  and  play 
to  its  proper  relation  to  the  business  of  life.  Meanwhile 
the  old  ideals  have  not  risen  in  value.     If  our  colleges 


126     THE  HIGHER   EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN. 

were  to  go  back  to  the  cut-straw  of  medievalism,  to  their 
work  of  twenty  years  ago,  their  professors  would  speak 
to  empty  benches.  In  those  colleges  which  still  cling 
to  these  traditions  the  benches  are  empty  to-day — or 
filled  with  idlers,  which  to  a  college  is  a  fate  worse  than 
death. 

The  best  education  for  a  young  woman  is  surely  not 
that  which  has  proved  unfit  for  the  young  man.  She  is 
an  individual  as  well  as  he,  and  her  work  gains  as  much 
as  his  by  relating  it  to  her  life.  But  an  institution  which 
meets  the  varied  needs  of  varied  men  can  also  meet  the 
varied  needs  of  the  varied  women.  The  intellectual 
needs  of  the  two  classes  are  not  very  different  in  many 
important  respects.  The  special  or  professional  needs, 
so  far  as  they  are  diflferent,  will  bring  their  own  satisfac- 
tion. Those  who  have  had  to  do  with  the  higher  train- 
ing of  women  know  that  the  severest  demands  can  be 
met  by  them  as  well  as  by  men.  There  is  no  demand 
for  easy  or  "goody-goody"  courses  of  study  for  women 
except  as  this  demand  has  been  encouraged  by  men.  In 
this  matter  the  supply  has  always  preceded  the  demand. 

There  are,  of  course,  certain  average  differences 
between  men  and  women  as  students.  Women  have 
often  greater  sympathy  or  greater  readiness  of  memory 
or  apprehension,  greater  fondness  for  technique.  In  the 
languages  and  literature,  often  in  mathematics  and  his- 
tory, they  are  found  to  excel.  They  lack,  on  the  whole, 
originality.  They  are  not  attracted  by  unsolved  prob- 
lems and  in  the  inductive  or  "inexact"  sciences,  they 
seldom  take  the  lead.  The  "  motor ' '  side  of  their  minds 
and  natures  is  not  strongly  developed.  They  do  not 
work  for  results  as  much  as  for  the  pleasure  of  study. 


THE    WOMAN'S    COLLEGE.  127 

In  the  traditional  courses  of  study — traditional  for 
men  —  they  are  often  very  successful.  Not  that  these 
courses  have  a  fitness  for  women,  but  that  women  are 
more  docile  and  less  critical  as  to  the  purposes  of  edu- 
cation. And  to  all  these  statements  there  are  many 
exceptions.  In  this,  however,  those  who  have  taught 
both  men  and  women  must  agree;  the  training  of  women 
is  just  as  serious  and  just  as  important  as  the  training 
of  men,  and  no  training  is  adequate  for  either  which  falls 
short  of  the  best. 

3.  Shall  women  be  taught  in  the  same  classes  as  m,en  ? 
This  is  partly  a  matter  of  taste.  It  does  no  harm  what- 
ever to  either  men  or  women  to  meet  those  of  the  other 
sex  in  the  same  classrooms.  But  if  they  prefer  not  to  do 
so,  let  them  do  otherwise.  Considerable  has  been  said 
for  and  against  the  union  in  one  institution  of  technical 
schools  and  schools  of  liberal  arts.  The  technical  qual- 
ity is  emphasized  by  its  separation  from  general  culture. 
But  I  believe  better  men  are  made  where  the  two  are  not 
separated.  The  culture  studies  and  their  students  gain 
from  the  feeling  of  reality  and  utility  cultivated  by  tech- 
nical work.  The  technical  students  gain  from  associa- 
tion with  men  and  influences  of  which  the  aggregate 
tendency  is  toward  greater  breadth  of  sympathy  and  a 
higher  point  of  view. 

A  woman's  college  is  more  or  less  distinctly  a  technical 
school.  In  most  cases,  its  purpose  is  distincdy  stated 
to  be  such.  It  is  a  school  of  training  for  the  profession 
of  womanhood.  It  encourages  womanliness  of  thought 
as  more  or  less  different  from  the  plain  thinking  which  is 
called  manly.     The  brightest  work  in  women's  colleges 


128     THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN. 

is  often  accompanied  by  a  nervous  strain,  as  though 
its  doer  were  fearful  of  falling  short  of  some  outside 
standard.  The  best  work  of  men  is  natural,  is  uncon- 
scious, the  normal  result  of  the  contact  of  the  mind  with 
the  problem  in  question. 

In  this  direction,  I  think,  lies  the  strongest  argument 
for  co-education.  This  argument  is  especially  cogent 
in  institutions  in  which  the  individuality  of  the  student 
is  recognized  and  respected.  In  such  schools  each  man,, 
by  his  relation  to  action  and  realities,  becomes  a  teacher 
of  women  in  these  regards,  as,  in  other  ways,  each  culti- 
vated woman  is  a  teacher  of  men. 

In  woman's  education,  as  planned  for  women  alone, 
the  tendency  is  toward  the  study  of  beauty  and  order. 
Literature  and  language  take  precedence  over  science. 
Expression  is  valued  more  highly  than  action.  In  carry- 
ing this  to  an  extreme,  the  necessary  relation  of  thought 
to  action  becomes  obscured.  The  scholarship  developed 
is  ineffective,  because  it  is  not  related  to  success.  The 
educated  woman  is  likely  to  master  technique,  rather  than 
art;  method,  rather  than  substance.  She  may  know  a 
good  deal,  but  she  can  do  nothing.  Often  her  views 
of  life  must  undergo  painful  changes  before  she  can  find 
her  place  in  the  world. 

In  schools  for  men  alone,  the  reverse  condition  often 
obtains.  The  sense  of  reality  obscures  the  elements 
of  beauty  and  fitness.  It  is  of  great  advantage  to  both 
men  and  women  to  meet  on  a  plane  of  equality  in  edu- 
cation. Women  are  brought  into  contact  with  men  who 
can  do  things  —  men  in  whom  the  sense  of  reality  is 
strong,  and  who  have  definite  views  in  life.  This  influ- 
ence effects  them  for  good.     It  turns  them  away  from 


IDEALS  RATHER    THAN  CAPRICE.  129 

sentimentalism.  It  is  opposed  to  the  unwholesome  state 
of  mind  called  ' '  monogamic  marriage. ' '  It  gives  tone 
to  their  religious  thoughts  and  impulses.  Above  all,  it 
tends  to  encourage  action  as  governed  by  ideals,  as  op- 
posed to  that  resting  on  caprice.  It  gives  them  better 
standards  of  what  is  possible  and  impossible  when  the 
responsibility  for  action  is  thrown  upon  them. 

In  like  manner,  the  association  with  wise,  sane,  and 
healthy  women  has  its  value  for  young  men.  This  value 
has  never  been  fully  realized,  even  by  the  strongest  advo- 
cates of  co-education.  It  raises  their  ideal  of  woman- 
hood, and  the  highest  manhood  must  be  associated  with 
such  an  ideal.  This  fact  shows  itself  in  many  ways;  but  to 
point  out  its  existence  must  suffice  for  the  present  paper. 

At  the  present  time,  the  demand  for  the  higher  educa- 
tion of  women  is  met  in  three  different  ways : 

1.  In  separate  colleges  for  women,  with  courses  of 
study  more  or  less  parallel  with  those  given  in  colleges 
for  men.  In  some  of  these  the  teachers  are  all  women, 
in  some  mostly  men,  and  in  others  a  more  or  less  equal 
division  obtains.  In  nearly  all  of  these  institutions, 
those  old  traditions  of  education  and  discipline  are  more 
prevalent  than  in  colleges  for  men,  and  nearly  all  retain 
some  trace  of  religious  or  denominational  control.  In 
all,  the  Zeitgeist  is  producing  more  or  less  commotion, 
and  the  changes  in  their  evolution  are  running  parallel 
with  those  in  colleges  for  men. 

2.  In  annexes  for  women  to  colleges  for  men.  In  these, 
part  of  the  instruction  given  to  the  men  is  repeated  for 
the  women,  though  in  different  classes  or  rooms,  and 
there  is  more  or  less  opportunity  to  use  the  same  libra- 

J 


130      THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN. 

ries  and  museums.  In  some  other  institutions,  the  rela- 
tions are  closer,  the  privileges  of  study  being  similar, 
the  difference  being  mainly  in  the  rules  of  conduct  by 
which  the  young  women  are  hedged  in,  the  young  men 
making  their  own. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  annex  system  cannot  be  a  per- 
manent one.  The  annex  student  does  not  get  the  best 
of  the  institution,  and  the  best  is  none  too  good  for  her. 
Sooner  or  later  she  will  demand  it,  or  go  where  the  best 
can  be  found.  The  best  students  will  cease  to  go  to  the 
annex.  The  institution  must  then  admit  women  on  equal 
terms,  or  not  admit  them  at  all.  There  is  certainly  no 
educational  reason  why  a  woman  should  prefer  the  annex 
of  one  institution  when  another  equally  good  throws  its 
doors  wide  open  for  her. 

3.  The  third  system  is  that  of  co-education.  In  this 
system  young  men  and  young  women  are  admitted  to 
the  same  classes,  subjected  to  the  same  requirements, 
and  governed  by  the  same  rules.  This  system  is  now 
fully  established  in  the  State  institutions  of  the  North 
and  West,  and  in  most  other  colleges  in  the  same  region. 
Its  effectiveness  has  long  since  passed  beyond  ques- 
tion among  those  familiar  with  its  operation.  Other 
things  being  equal,  the  young  men  are  more  earnest, 
better  in  manners  and  morals,  and  in  all  ways  more  civ- 
ilized than  under  monastic  conditions.  The  women  do 
more  work  in  a  more  natural  way,  with  better  perspect- 
ive and  with  saner  incentives  than  when  isolated  from  the 
influence  and  society  of  men.  There  is  less  of  silliness 
and  folly  where  a  man  is  not  a  novelty.  In  co-educational 
institutions  of  high  standards,  frivolous  conduct  or  scan- 
dals of  any  form  are  unknown.     The  responsibility  for 


THE    COLLEGE    WOMAN.  131 

decorum  is  thrown  from  the  school  to  the  woman,  and 
the  woman  rises  to  the  responsibility.  Many  professors 
have  entered  Western  colleges  with  strong  prejudices 
against  co-education.  These  prejudices  have  never 
endured  the  test  of  experience.  What  is  well  done  has 
a  tonic  effect  on  the  mind  and  character.  The  college 
girl  has  long  since  ceased  to  expect  any  particular  leni- 
ency because  she  is  a  girl.  She  stands  or  falls  with  the 
character  of  her  work. 

It  is  not  true  that  the  character  of  college  work  has 
been  in  any  way  lowered  by  co-education.  The  reverse 
is  decidedly  the  case.  It  is  true  that  untimely  zeal  of  one 
sort  or  another  has  filled  the  West  with  a  host  of  so-called 
colleges.  It  is  true  that  most  of  these  are  weak  and 
doing  poor  work  in  poor  ways.  It  is  true  that  most  of 
these  are  co- educational.  It  is  also  true  that  the  great 
majority  of  their  students  are  not  of  college  grade  at  all. 
In  such  schools,  low  standards  rule,  both  as  to  scholar- 
ship and  as  to  manners.  The  student  fresh  from  the 
country,  with  no  preparatory  training,  will  bring  the 
manners  of  his  home.  These  are  not  always  good  man- 
ners, as  manners  are  judged.  But  none  of  these  defects 
are  derived  from  co-education;  nor  are  any  of  these  con- 
ditions in  any  way  made  worse  by  it. 

A  final  question:  Does  not  co-education  lead  to  mar- 
riage? Most  certainly  it  does;  and  this  fact  need  not 
be  and  cannot  be  denied.  But  such  marriages  are  not 
usually  premature.  It  is  certainly  true  that  no  better 
marriages  can  be  made  than  those  founded  on  common 
interests  and  intellectual  friendships. 

A  college  man  who  has  known  college  women  is  not 
drawn  to  those  of  lower  ideals  and  inferior  training.     His 


132       THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN. 

choice  is  likely  to  be  led  toward  the  best  he  has  known. 
A  college  woman  is  not  led  by  propinquity  to  accept  the 
attentions  of  inferior  men. 

I  have  before  me  the  statistics  of  the  faculty  of  a  uni- 
versity open  to  both  sexes  alike.  Of  the  eighty  profes- 
sors and  instructors,  twenty-seven  men  and  women  are 
still  unmarried.  Of  the  remaining  fifty-three,  twenty-one 
have  taken  the  Bachelor's  degree  in  co-educational  insti- 
tutions, and  have  married  college  associates;  twelve, 
mostly  from  colleges  not  co-educational,  have  married 
women  from  other  colleges,  and  in  twenty  cases  the  wives 
are  not  college  graduates. 

It  will  be  seen,  then,  that  nearly  all  those  who  are 
graduates  of  co-educational  colleges  have  married  col- 
lege friends.  In  most  cases  college  men  have  chosen 
college  women;  and  in  all  cases  both  men  and  women 
are  thoroughly  satisfied  with  the  outcome  of  co-educa- 
tion. It  is  part  of  the  legitimate  function  of  higher 
education  to  prepare  women,  as  well  as  men,  for  happy 
and  successful  lives. 

An  Eastern  professor,  lately  visiting  a  Western  State 
university,  asked  one  of  the  seniors  what  he  thought 
of  the  question  of  co-education. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  said  the  student;  "what  ques- 
tion do  you  mean  ?  ' ' 

"Why,  co-education,"  said  the  professor;  "the  edu- 
cation of  women  in  colleges  for  men. ' ' 

"Oh,"  said  the  student,  "co-education  is  not  a 
question  here." 

And  he  was  right.  Co-education  is  never  a  question 
where  it  has  been  fairly  tried. 


VIII. 
THE  TRAINING  OF  THE   PHYSICIAN.* 

IT  is  a  matter  of  common  observation  that  the  various 
elements  in  the  educational  fabric  of  America  are  not 
in  any  proper  sense  parts  of  an  educational  system. 
Each  kind  of  school  has  developed  in  its  own  way,  in 
response  to  a  special  demand,  or  in  furtherance  of  some 
educational  tradition.  Our  colleges  are  English  in  blood 
and  ancestry,  our  universities  German.  Our  academies 
are  children  of  the  colleges,  and  our  high  schools  and 
professional  schools  are  for  the  most  part  wholly  distinct 
in  their  origin  and  native  to  our  soil.  They  have  arisen 
in  obedience  to  the  law  of  supply  and  demand,  and  their 
methods  and  ideals  are  often  wholly  at  variance  with 
those  of  the  colleges. 

There  have  been  some  good  results  arising  from  these 
conditions.  The  progress  of  evolution  is  most  rapid 
where  the  chains  of  tradition  are  weakest.  These  chains 
have  been  strongest  in  our  colleges;  and  of  all  our  schools 
our  colleges  have  been  until  lately  the  least  progressive. 
The  chains  of  tradition  have  been  weakest  in  our  profes- 
sional schools;  but  all  that  they  have  gained  in  freedom 
has  been  more  than  lost  by  their  separation  from  other 
educational  agencies.  The  bad  results  of  our  lack  of 
correlation  have  been  numerous  and  positive.  Among 
these  have  been  the  general  weakness  of  the  whole  sys- 

•  Commencement  address  at  Cooper  Medical  College,  San  Francisco,  1892; 
reprinted  from  Occidental  Medical  Times,  January,  1893. 

133 


134       THE    TRAINING    OF   THE   PHYSICIAN. 

tern  and  a  prodigious  waste  of  strength  throughout  its 
parts.  Much  of  the  best  of  the  educational  thought  of 
the  day  is  devoted  to  the  work  of  bringing  together  and 
properly  dovetailing  the  scattered  parts  of  our  system. 
To  consider  a  single  one  of  these  problems,  the  relation 
of  medical  education  to  the  college  education,  is  the  pur- 
pose of  the  present  paper. 

The  Bachelor's  degree,  as  generally  understood,  is  an 
index  of  general  culture,  the  mark  of  that  degree  of 
training  which  fairly  prepares  a  bright  man  to  enter  upon 
professional  work.  The  colleges  have,  as  a  rule,  regarded 
this  standard  as  a  low  one,  rather  than  a  high  one,  and 
with  the  improvement  of  our  educational  methods,  the 
requirements  for  this  degree  have  been  steadily  advanced. 
Better  work  and  more  of  it  is  necessary  for  graduation 
with  each  succeeding  class.  The  result  of  this  is,  that 
the  student  who  has  spent  all  his  life  in  the  schools  is  not 
through  college  and  ready  to  begin  his  professional 
studies  much  before  the  age  of  twenty-two,  while  the 
man  who  is  forced  by  any  reason  to  interrupt  his  school 
work  may  be  anywhere  from  twenty-five  to  thirty  years 
of  age  on  graduation. 

This  fact  has  led  to  a  demand  for  the  shortening  of 
the  college  course  in  the  interests  of  practical  life.  The 
medical  faculty  of  Harvard  University  has  led  in  this 
demand  in  the  interest  of  professional  studies,  and  the 
question  of  reducing  the  college  course  from  four  years 
to  three,  has  become  a  subject  of  general  discussion.  It 
is,  of  course,  evident  that  there  is  no  special  virtue  in 
four  years  of  work,  as  opposed  to  three,  or  to  five,  or  to 
any  other  particular  number;  nor  is  there  any  universal 
agreement  at  present  as  to  the  separation  of  the  work  of 


IS    THE    COLLEGE  COURSE    TOO   LONG?   135 

the  colleges  from  that  of  the  high  school  or  academy. 
That  the  standard  of  requirement  for  admission  at  Har- 
vard is  unusually  high  may  be  in  itself  a  valid  reason  for 
lowering  the  requirements  for  graduation  in  Harvard.  In 
that  case,  however,  the  discussion  of  the  question  would 
practically  concern  Harvard  University  alone. 

But  viewing  the  subject  from  the  side  of  the  student 
of  medicine,  this  question  is  before  us:  Is  the  college 
course  too  long?  That  it  is  so,  is  practically  the  verdict 
of  the  medical  schools  as  well  as  of  the  great  body  of  phy- 
sicians themselves.  The  medical  colleges  have  made 
the  preliminary  training  a  matter  of  luxury,  rather  than 
of  necessity,  by  putting  into  the  same  classes,  under  the 
same  instruction,  the  graduates  of  colleges  and  persons 
who  come  from  the  country  district  school.  If  general 
culture  be  essential  to  professional  success,  the  medical 
college  should  say  so  to  those  who  enter  its  doors.  So  far 
as  any  official  action  in  most  of  our  medical  colleges  is 
concerned,  the  illiterate  boor,  if  he  can  sign  the  matricula- 
tion book,  is  as  ready  for  medical  education  as  the  most 
accomplished  college  graduate. 

The  physicians  of  our  country  say  the  same  thing;  for 
the  number  of  college-bred  men  in  medicine  is  lower 
than  in  almost  any  other  profession.  Statistics  furnished 
me  by  Professor  Richard  G.  Boone,  show  that  in  the 
United  States  at  present,  about  one  clergyman  in  four, 
one  lawyer  in  five,  and  one  physician  in  twelve,  has  had 
a  college  education.  Connected  with  the  lack  of  pre- 
paratory training  on  the  part  of  medical  students,  there 
are  certain  recognized  facts,  one  of  which  is  this:  Taking 
the  country  over,  of  all  classes  of  students,  those  in 
medicine  are  as  a  rule  (though  such  a  rule  admits  of 


136      THE    TRAINING   OF   THE   PHYSICIAN. 

many  individual  exceptions)  the  most  reckless  in  their 
mode  of  life  and  the  most  careless  of  the  laws  of  hygiene, 
and  of  decencies  in  general,  of  any  class  of  students 
whatsoever.  This  is  not  so  true  now  as  it  was  a  few 
years  ago.  For  this  change  the  rising  standards  of  our 
medical  schools  are  certainly  responsible.  This  change 
results  directly  from  making  it  -more  difficult  for  unculti- 
vated men  to  win  the  Doctor's  degree,  and  indirectly 
from  bringing  better  men  into  the  field  as  competitors. 
Already  there  is  a  good  deal  of  crowding  at  the  bottom 
of  the  stairs  in  the  profession;  and  in  view  of  this  fact 
the  scramble  for  the  name  of  doctor  is  somewhat  abating. 

A  concerted  effort  is  now  being  made  to  raise  the 
standard  of  the  profession  of  medicine  by  raising  the 
general  culture  of  physicians.  Its  purpose  is  to  make 
medicine  a  w^orthy  branch  of  applied  science,  and  its 
votaries  men  to  whom  the  word  Science  is  not  an  empty 
name.  It  has  been  a  frequent  reproach  to  the  medical 
profession  that  physicians  are  not  doing  their  part  in  this 
age  of  scientific  investigation  and  discovery,  in  a  time 
when  the  boundaries  of  knowledge  are  widening  in  every 
direction  at  a  rate  of  progress  never  before  known. 

It  is  said  that,  although  their  work-  brings  them  into 
daily  contact  with  the  very  subjects  over  which  the 
battles  of  science  are  being  waged,  they  know  nothing 
of  the  struggle  and  have  no  share  in  the  victory.  Right 
in  the  path  of  the  physician  lie  the  great  problems  of  the 
nature  of  heredity,  of  psychology,  histology,  sociology, 
criminology  —  the  manifold  problems  of  all  the  laws  of 
life.  Individual  physicians  have  found  out  many  things 
—  much  more  than  the  world  outside  has  recognized; 
but  the  profession  at  large  is  not  interested  in  these  mat- 


BRING    IN   BETTER    MEN.  137 

ters.  Although  not  one  of  these  problems  is  alien  to  the 
daily  work  of  any  physician,  the  average  practitioner 
neither  knows  what  is  already  known  nor  what  is  yet  to 
be  found  out. 

When  our  physicians  are  ready  for  it,  the  whole  ad- 
ministration of  criminal  law  will  be  turned  over  to  them. 
The  responsibility  for  crime  or  craziness  cannot  be  fixed 
by  jurisprudence.  The  criminal  cannot  be  cured  by  law, 
and  no  good  end  is  served  by  the  punishments  the  law 
metes  out.  He  can  perhaps  be  healed.  If  incurable,  he 
can  be  kept  in  confinement;  and  to  physicians,  and  to 
them  alone,  the  community  must  look  for  help  in  these 
matters. 

If  our  physicians  be  deficient  in  general  culture,  and 
if  it  be  true  that  they  are  not  taking  their  share  in  the 
progress  of  science,  may  not  these  facts  be  associated  ? 
May  we  not  have  here  the  relation  of  cause  and  effect  ? 
What  then  is  the  remedy?  Is  it  not  this?  Bring  in 
better  men;  shut  out  firom  the  medical  profession  the 
ignorant,  the  trifling,  and  the  unambitious,  the  tinker 
and  the  job-worker,  and  reserve  the  training  of  our 
medical  schools  for  those  who  can  bring  to  their  work 
the  instincts,  the  traditions,  and  the  outlook  of  the  scholar. 

A  writer  has  lately  maintained  that  a  man  without  in- 
dependent means  should  not  study  medicine.  The  phy- 
sician can  no  longer  be  sure  of  earning  his  living  in  our 
cities  on  account  of  the  competition  of  the  fi-ee  dispen- 
saries. Whether  the  fi-ee  dispensary  be  a  wise  charity 
or  not,  is  perhaps  an  open  question.  But  surely  the  skill- 
ful physician  has  a  field  which  the  free  dispensary  cannot 
invade.  The  physician  we  dream  of  is  something  more 
than  the  automatic  dispenser  of  drugs.     Skill  and  wis- 


138      THE    TRAINING    OF   THE   PHYSICIAN. 

dom  will  always  be  valued  and  paid  for.  The  thoroughly 
trained  man  fears  no  competition;  for  it  is  by  measure- 
ment with  others  that  his  value  can  be  estimated. 

For  the  training  which  shall  enable  the  medical  student 
to  enter  on  his  professional  work  in  the  spirit  of  science 
and  of  scholarship,  we  must  look  to  the  college.  To  give 
this  breadth  and  skill,  to  fit  men  and  women  to  enter 
with  large  views  and  trained  minds  on  the  work  of  life, 
the  college  exists.  The  general  culture  of  the  physician 
should  have  its  roots  in  the  work  of  the  college.  The 
amount  and  the  kind  of  culture  regarded  by  the  colleges 
in  general  as  essential  to  the  highest  professional  success, 
they  have  roughly  estimated  by  their  requirements  for 
the  degree  of  Bachelor  of  Arts.  This  degree,  or  its  equiv- 
alent, has  been  taken  by  the  American  Academy  of  Medi- 
cine as  its  standard  of  admission  to  membership.  Some 
measure  of  culture  is  better  than  no  measure,  however 
fluctuating  the  standard  may  be,  and  this  is  the  only  meas- 
ure which  is  furnished  by  the  colleges  themselves.  If 
we  require  or  recognize  collegiate  attainments  at  all,  the 
Bachelor's  degree  furnishes  the  only  available  method 
by  which  general  culture  may  be  indicated. 

It  is  very  easy  to  see  that  this  standard  is  not  absolute; 
that  it  means  in  one  college  something  different  in  kind 
as  well  as  in  amount  from  that  which  obtains  in  another. 
Its  meaning  to-day  is  not  what  it  was  ten  years  ago,  nor 
what  it  will  be  ten  years  hence.  Much  time  has  been 
spent  in  tabulating  the  different  elements  involved  in  the 
requirements  for  this  degree  in  the  different  American 
colleges.  The  results  are  unsatisfactory;  for  the  value 
of  the  degree  is  not  to  be  determined  by  the  percentage 
of  required  work  in  Greek,  Latin,  German,  nor  in  any 


VALUE    OF   THE    COLLEGE   DEGREE.      139 

of  the  sciences.  The  school  which  shows  the  greatest 
amount  of  required  work  in  any  particular  subject  may- 
be the  very  one  where  the  least  of  this  work  is  really 
done.  The  freedom  of  the  elective  system  gives,  in  any 
line  of  work,  the  greatest  possibilities.  But  the  very 
fact  of  freedom  prevents  its  results  from  appearing  in  a 
table  of  percentages.  The  essential  fact  is  the  extent 
to  which  the  spirit  of  the  scholar  has  been  inspired  in 
the  student,  and  this  varies  in  every  case  with  the  differ- 
ences of  teacher  and  scholar.  So  this  fluctuation  is 
inherent  in  the  nature  of  things.  It  is  well  that  it  should 
be  so,  and  that  its  variations  should  be  greater,  rather 
than  less,  for  its  maximum  indicates  the  unrestrained 
influence  of  great  teachers.  There  are  men  in  some  of 
our  colleges  under  whom  a  single  year's  study  is  better 
than  many  years  of  ordinary  drill. 

Moreover,  America  is  a  broad  land,  and  yields  nour- 
ishment for  many  different  educational  ideas.  In  many 
cases,  too,  the  variations  in  the  requirements  for  a  degree 
are  more  apparent  than  real;  for  the  difference  of  sub- 
jects pursued  in  a  college  course  is  a  very  small  matter 
as  compared  with  the  question  whether  the  best  years 
of  youth  are  spent  in  mental  training,  in  the  demands  of 
trade,  or  in  fruitless  idleness. 

Is  this  standard  of  the  Bachelor's  degree  too  high  for 
the  best  results  in  professional  work  ?  In  other  words, 
is  the  physician  who  has  waited  to  secure  his  Bachelor's 
degree  thereby  handicapped  in  his  professional  life?  Has 
he  lost  a  year  or  two  which,  in  this  hurr)'ing  age,  he 
can  never  regain  ?  I  cannot  think  so,  and  I  am  sure 
no  such  view  could  be  sustained  by  statisics.  Are  the 
members  of  the  American  Academy  less  successful  than 


I40      THE    TRAINING    OF   THE  PHYSICIAN. 

their  brother  physicians  ?  Is  the  college  degree  which 
they  bear  the  mark  of  those  who  have  fallen  behind  in 
the  active  work  of  the  physician?  To  state  this  ques- 
tion is  to  answer  it.  The  broadest  outlook  on  nature 
and  human  life  goes  with  the  highest  professional  success. 
The  educated  physician  is  the  man  of  science.  The  un- 
educated physician  is  the  quack. 

But,  as  I  have  said,  our  medical  schools  seem  to  think 
otherwise;  for  in  most  of  them  the  requirement  for  en- 
trance, so  far  from  being  that  of  college  graduation,  is  far 
less  than  that  necessary  even  for  entrance  into  the  college. 
If  general  training  be  important,  the  schools  should  in- 
sist upon  it.  That  it  is  not  necessary  in  their  judgment 
is  apparently  shown  by  the  requirements  for  admission. 

This  condition  of  things,  I  believe,  has  two  causes  — 
the  one  discreditable  to  the  profession,  the  other  to  the 
colleges.  In  the  first  place,  most  of  our  medical  schools 
are  scantily  endowed,  or  else  are  purely  private  ventures. 
It  has  been  for  them  a  business  necessity  to  demand  not 
the  preparation  they  want,  but  that  which  they  can  get. 
In  other  words,  they  have  been  forced  to  cater  to  the 
desire  of  ignorance  and  impatience  to  take  part  in  the 
honor  and  emoluments  of  the  medical  profession.  For 
the  same  reason  the  standard  of  graduation  has  been  kept 
low.  A  high  standard  would  diminish  the  sale  of  the 
lecture  tickets.  The  character  of  the  profession  has  been 
lowered  that  the  medical  college  may  be  self-supporting; 
for  not  to  support  itself  in  part  at  least  means  to  close 
its  doors. 

I  do  not  mean  to  depreciate  this  class  of  medical 
schools;  for  many  of  our  best  teachers  of  medicine  have 
belonged  to  them,  and  have  given  their  instruction  in 


TEACH  MEDICINE  IN  THE  UNIVERSITY.    141 

the  intervals  of  an  active  practice.  But  this  is  not  the 
ideal  medical  school;  for  no  school  can  be  effective  until 
it  exists  for  its  work  alone — instruction  and  investiga- 
tion, with  no  ulterior  end  whatever.  Its  teachers  should 
never  have  to  look  to  the  interests  of  the  cash  account, 
and  its  examiners  should  never  be  forced  to  say  that 
black  is  white  at  the  demand  of  an  empty  treasury. 
The  medical  schools  of  the  future  will  be  sustained  as 
necessary  parts  of  university  work,  and  the  freedom 
of  the  university  professor  will  be  the  right  of  the 
teacher  of  medicine.  The  medical  schools  have  the 
same  claim  for  support  that  other  professional  schools 
should  have.  They  have  the  same  claim  on  the  interests 
of  the  wealthy  friends  of  education.  In  the  West  and 
in  the  South,  where  colleges  and  the  lower  schools  are 
alike  maintained  at  the  public  expense,  the  medical  schools 
have  the  same  claim  for  State  support  that  is  awarded  to 
other  parts  of  the  public-school  system. 

When  a  medical  school  is  well  endowed,  or  has  the 
State  behind  it,  it  can  exact  the  standards  the  good 
of  the  profession  requires.  Till  then  it  is  at  the 
mercy  of  the  demands  about  it.  Its  students  are  the 
product  of  its  surroundings,  not  the  choice  of  the  school 
itself. 

That  the  proper  training  of  teachers  is  a  matter  of  real 
economy  has  been  recognized  by  every  State  in  the 
Union,  and  this  fact  has  led  to  the  establishment  of  the 
State  normal  schools.  We  recognize  that  thorough 
professional  training  is  the  best  antidote  to  educational 
quackery  and  fraud.  It  is  cheaper  for  the  people  to  pay 
for  the  education  of  the  teachers,  and  then  to  pay  the 
teachers  an  increased  salary  because  they  are  educate  J, 


142       THE    TRAINING    OF    THE  PHYSICIAN. 

than  it  is  to  depend  on  the  haphazard  training  furnished 
by  the  law  of  supply  and  demand. 

There  was  a  time  when  to  be  fit  for  nothing  else  was 
the  chief  requisite  for  the  schoolmaster.  But  experience 
has  shown  that  such  teaching  is  the  costliest  of  all.  It 
has  shown  that  one  teacher  worth  two  hundred  dollars  a 
month  is  more  effective  for  educational  advancement  than 
ten  who  find  their  proper  level  at  forty  or  fifty. 

As  with  teaching,  so  with  all  other  professions  —  cheap 
work  is  never  good.  It  is  often  said  in  the  West,  and 
this  statement  is  applauded  by  our  farmers  and  me- 
chanics, the  very  men  who  should  know  better,  that  the 
State  should  not  support  schools  for  the  making  of 
physicians  and  lawyers.  The  people  should  not  be 
taxed  to  help  young  men  into  these  easy  professions 
already  so  overcrowded. 

Let  us  state  this  proposition  in  another  form :  Shall 
the  State  demand  that  the  lawyers,  physicians,  survey- 
ors, and  architects  who  serve  its  people  should  know 
their  business  ?  Why  not  ?  Have  we  not  had  enough 
of  the  work  of  frauds  and  fools  ?  The  money  wasted 
each  year  in  California  on  quacks  and  quack  medicines, 
revealed  remedies,  and  blessed  handkerchiefs,  would 
educate  every  physician  in  the  State  who  has  the  brains 
to  bear  education. 

Bring  in  better  men.  There  is  no  more  effective  way 
of  thinning  out  incompetent  men  in  any  profession  than 
to  bring  trained  men  in  competition  with  them.  If  the 
State  could  require  each  physician  or  lawyer  to  know 
what  a  physician  or  lawyer  ought  to  know,  the  quacks 
and  pettifoggers  would  disappear  as  surely  as  an  army 
of  tramps  before  a  stone-pile.     This  country  is  now  their 


THE    AMERICAN    DOCTOR.  143 

paradise.  These  professions  are  overcrowded  in  America 
simply  because  they  are  not  professions  at  all. 

Not  long  ago  the  University  of  Berlin  refused  to  recog- 
nize the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Medicine  from  an  American 
school  as  a  degree  at  all.  It  is  easy  to  see  a  reason  for 
this.  In  our  best  schools  the  total  educational  require- 
ment for  this  degree  is  lower  than  in  Berlin.  In  our  worst 
schools  it  may  fall  seven  years  behind.  One  of  the  very 
best  of  our  medical  colleges  has  lately  decided  to  raise 
the  standard  of  admission  a  little  each  year  until  1899. 
When  this  is  done  the  entrance  requirements  will  be 
those  of  the  Freshman  class  in  the  Academic  department 
of  the  same  institution. 

American  physicians  are  often  among  the  most  skillful 
in  the  world;  but  this  comes  through  individual  capacity 
and  through  that  native  ingenuity  with  which  every 
American  is  blest,  rather  than  from  any  requirement  of 
the  schools. 

It  was  my  fortune  some  three  years  ago  to  meet  that 
which  in  Europe  is  regarded  as  a  typical  American  phy- 
sician —  one  who  was  taught  by  nature,  and  not  by  the 
schools.  He  was,  therefore,  regarded  by  the  people 
of  rural  England  with  a  reverence  which  the  man  of 
training  often  fails  to  inspire.  It  was  in  the  solemn  and 
decorous  village  of  Stratford-on-Avon  that  I  met  this 
physician.  Riding  on  a  gilded  circus  wagon  drawn  by 
four  noble  horses,  attired  in  a  cowboy's  splendid  uniform, 
in  gray  sombrero^  with  a  red  serape,  accompanied  by  a 
band  of  musicians  dressed  as  cowboys  and  stained  as 
Indians,  this  man  was  going  through  England  selling 
from  the  wagon  that  famous  remedy  of  the  Kickapoo 
Indians,    the   August    Flower.     It   cures  every   disease 


144      THE    TRAINING    OF   THE  PHYSICIAN 

known  to  that  countryside  by  the  simple  purification 
of  the  blood.  In  one  day  in  Stratford-on-Avon  he  won 
back  for  America  all  the  money  the  Americans  have 
spent  on  the  shrine  of  Shakspeare  within  the  past  three 
hundred  years;  and  on  Sunday  evening  I  saw  him  in- 
stalled in  the  famous  parlors  in  the  ancient  Red  Horse 
Inn  at  Stratford,  sacred  to  the  memory  of  Washington 
Irving,  as  the  one  American  there  worthy  to  dine  within 
its  historic  walls.  The  scarcity  of  quacks  in  England 
made  his  business  profitable. 

A  medical  student  killed  himself  in  New  York  the 
other  day,  leaving  behind  him  these  words:  "I  die 
because  there  is  room  for  no  more  doctors."  Over- 
crowded, poor  fellow,  smothered  by  the  weight  of  the 
mass  of  his  fellow-incompetents,  and  all  this  while  the 
science  of  medicine  stands  on  the  verge  of  the  greatest  dis- 
coveries since  the  time  of  Galen  and  ^Esculapius.  ' '  Room 
for  no  more  doctors,"  just  now  when  the  theory  of  evo- 
lution begins  to  throw  its  electric  light  down  thousands 
of  avenues  closed  to  the  fathers  of  medicine;  "  room  for 
no  more  doctors,"  when  the  germ  theory  is  working  its 
revolution  in  surgery,  obstetrics,  and  in  the  treatment 
of  contagious  diseases;  "room  for  no  more  doctors," 
when  a  thousand  applications  of  antiseptics  and  anes- 
thetics are  yet  to  be  made,  or  made  in  better  ways; 
"no  more  doctors,"  when  with  the  discoveries  of  each 
succeeding  year  it  is  more  and  more  worth  while  to  be 
a  doctor  —  for  each  year  strengthens  the  doctor's  grip 
on  the  forces  of  sin  and  death. 

There  is  always  a  place  for  doctors;  but  only  for  men 
of  the  nobler  sort.  Their  profession  is  not  overcrowded. 
The   overcrowd   is   outside  the  profession.     The  great 


ROOM  FOR    MORE    DOCTORS.  145 

majority  of  our  physicians  have  had  only  the  commonest 
of  school  advantages.  What  wonder  that  so  much  of 
the  world  is  a  sealed  book  to  them  ?  Men  who  do  not 
read  "bound  books,"  cannot  share  in  the  advancement 
of  science. 

I  do  not  mean  to  depreciate  in  any  way  the  work  of 
the  many  who  are  really  great  in  the  noblest  of  all  pro- 
fessions. Of  our  best  we  have  the  right  to  be  proud. 
It  is  only  when  we  regard  the  amount  of  ignorant, 
empirical,  and  dishonest  work  called  professional  that 
the  record  grows  dark,  and  we  doubt  whether  our  Ameri- 
can system  of  medical  laissez-faire  can  be  a  wise  one. 

Only  by  the  requirement  of  training  can  our  profes- 
sions be  restored  to  their  ancient  respectability.  Their 
work  must  rest  on  a  basis  of  science.  A  man  who  has 
spent  years  with  the  great  jurists  will  not  sell  his  soul 
for  a  twenty-five  dollar  fee  to  the  first  scoundrel  who 
would  use  him.  The  scientific  physician  does  not  pros- 
titute his  skill  in  any  of  the  hundred  ways  condemned 
by  the  code  of  ethics.  A  true  man  cannot  be  used  for 
base  purposes.  Noblesse  oblige;  and  professional  train- 
ing implies  professional  honor.  Only  the  highest  stan- 
dards can  purge  the  profession  of  pai'asites  and  quacks; 
only  honest  knowledge  can  save  us  from  the  Christian 
scientist  and  the  almanac.  But  in  every  demand  the 
people  make  the  State  must  furnish  the  means  for 
satisfaction. 

As  I  have  already  said,  there  has  been  another  reason 
why  the  medical  student  has  shunned  the  college,  name- 
ly, the  tremendous  waste  involved  in  the  old-fashioned, 
prescribed  course;  or,  for  that  matter,  in  any  course  of 
study  inflexibly  prearranged.     This  waste  is  threefold. 


146       THE    TRAINING    OF   THE   PHYSICIAN. 

The  time  spent  on  subjects  in  no  wise  concerned  with 
the  future  studies  of  the  student  —  thoughts  which  form 
no  part  of  his  culture;  second,  the  time  spent  on  sub- 
jects for  which  the  student  has  no  aptitude,  from  which 
he  derives  not  the  strength  gained  by  mastery,  but  only 
the  aversion  felt  for  the  unwelcome  task;  and  third,  and 
greatest  of  all,  the  waste  of  subjects  taught  by  dull 
teachers,  dry,  dreary,  or  mechanical,  from  whom  the 
student  received  nothing,  because  there  was  nothing  in 
them  to  give. 

Those  of  us  who  have  been  through  the  prescribed 
course  of  the  college  have  run  the  gauntlet  of  all  these 
parasites  on  higher  education.  Only  he  who  is  familiar 
with  the  life  of  college  boys  can  realize  the  great  waste 
connected  with  work  in  wrong  subjects  under  wrong 
teachers ;  and  no  one  can  estimate  the  number  who  have 
been  repelled  from  the  college  by  one  or  both  of  these 
evil  influences.  Many  of  those  who  remained  to  the  end 
did  so  because  their  college  lives  were  spent  in  the 
atmosphere  of  good-fellowship,  not  because  they  were 
attracted  by  their  teachers  or  the  work  they  were  set 
to  do 

If  our  medical  schools  cede  four  years  to  the  culture 
of  the  colleges,  they  have  the  right  to  ask  that  the 
colleges  waste  no  time.  They  cannot  ask  any  particular 
curriculum  or  any  special  order  of  studies.  They  can 
only  ask  for  the  student  the  freedom  of  choice  which  shall 
enable  him  to  steer  clear  of  deficient  teachers,  and  to 
work  in  fields  from  which  he  may  in  later  life  expect 
to  reap  a  harvest.  The  college  should  furnish  such 
means  of  study  that  the  future  student  shall  not  go  to 
the  medical  school  ignorant  of  the  use  of  the  scalpel 


MENTAL    CULTURE    NECESSARY.  147 

and  the  microscope.  Cats  are  abundant  and  cheap. 
The  elementary  facts  of  anatomy  can  be  learned  from 
them  in  college  far  better  than  in  the  dissecting-room  of 
the  special  school,  where  advanced  work  should  be  done, 
instead  of  the  bungling  efforts  of  beginners  who  do  not 
know  a  vein  from  a  tendon. 

The  college  course  should  also  teach  the  medical  stu- 
dent the  general  facts  and  theory  of  chemistry  and  the 
processes  of  chemical  manipulation.  The  elements  of 
botany  and  of  vegetable  and  animal  physiology  should 
be  in  his  possession;  the  facts  of  comparative  anatomy, 
and  the  great  laws  of  life,  of  natural  selection,  heredity, 
variability,  functional  activity,  and  response  to  external 
stimulus,  which  form  the  basis  of  organic  evolution.  He 
should  know  a  bacterium  when  he  sees  it,  and  should 
know  how  to  see  it.  He  should  have  heard  of  the  cor- 
relation and  conservation  of  forces;  in  short,  he  should 
know  what  is  meant  by  scientific  investigation,  and  in 
some  degree  have  caught  the  inspiration  of  it.  The 
physician  should,  moreover,  learn  to  write  and  speak 
good  English.  Besides  this,  he  ought  to — he  must — 
read  French  and  German.  Other  languages  will  not 
hurt  him,  nor  will  a  knowledge  of  literature,  philosophy, 
or  history. 

Such  a  course  of  study  as  is  here  contemplated  is 
actually  provided  in  the  undergraduate  department  of 
several  of  our  universities.  It  is,  however,  a  course  of  gen- 
eral culture,  not  a  technical  or  professional  course.  This 
course,  or  its  equivalent,  is  recognized  as  a  necessary 
condition  of  entrance  in  the  new  medical  school  of  Johns 
Hopkins  University.  No  more  important  movement 
has  been  taken  toward  raising  the  standard  of  medical 


148      THE    TRAINING    OF    THE   PHYSICIAN. 

education  in  America  than  this  recognition  by  Johns 
Hopkins  University  of  the  absolute  necessity  of  mental 
culture  as  a  requisite  for  professional  training. 

But  all  that  he  wants  the  student  cannot  get  in  a  four 
years'  college  course,  no  matter  how  fully  he  may  crowd 
it.  The  whole  time  is  little  enough  if  every  moment  be 
saved.  But  four  years  is  far  too  long  if  it  is  made  a  time 
for  dawdling  and  cramming,  and  for  merely  going 
through  the  motions  of  study.  Let  the  college  permit 
the  medical  student  to  get  a  fair  return  for  every  hour 
he  spends,  and  the  requirement  of  a  college  degree  at 
the  door  of  the  medical  school  will  shut  out  no  worthy 
man,  nor  will  it  hold  back  any  in  the  race  for  life. 

Nor  need  the  medical  school  fear  that  it  will  suffer 
through  the  neglect  of  the  college  to  furnish  the  neces- 
sary training.  Let  the  collegiate  course  be  required  as 
a  requisite  to  the  professional  degree,  and  the  inexorable 
law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest  will  eliminate  every  waste 
teacher  and  every  waste  subject  from  the  college  course 
for  the  student  preparing  for  work  in  medicine. 

But  I  do  not  wish  to  lay  a  disproportionate  stress 
upon  the  college  diploma.  It  is  at  the  best  a  temporary 
thing  —  a  mere  milestone,  convenient  to  measure  from 
so  long  as  it  is  in  sight.  The  world,  it  has  been  said, 
"cares  little  for  that  baby  badge,"  though  it  will  never 
cease  to  care  for  the  culture  that  ought  to  be  behind  it. 

Some  day,  our  students  will  need  the  badge  no  longer; 
and  the  Bachelor's  degree,  with  college  honors,  and 
prizes,  and  other  playthings  of  our  educational  childhood 
will  be  laid  aside.  All  these  things  are  forms,  and  forms 
only,  and  our  higher  education  is  fast  outgrowing  them. 
The  boundary  line  between  general  and  professional  edu- 


HOW   SCHOLARS    ARE    MADE.  149 

cation  will  be  broken  down  to  the  advantage  of  both. 
We  shall  have  the  ' '  school  where  any  person  can  have 
instruction  in  any  study, ' '  and  the  study  of  the  humani- 
ties need  not  end  where  the  study  of  the  human  body 
is  begun.  Let  each  come  who  will,  and  let  each  take 
what  he  can,  and  let  the  ideals  be  so  high  that  no  one 
will  imagine  that  he  is  getting  where  he  is  not.  Scholars 
can  be  made  neither  by  driving  nor  by  coaxing.  In  any 
profession  the  inspiration  and  the  example  of  educated 
men  is  the  best  surety  that  the  generation  which  suc- 
ceeds them  shall  be  likewise  men  of  culture. 


IX. 

LAW    SCHOOLS    AND    LAWYERS.* 

MR.  JAMES  BRYCE,  writing  of  the  universities 
of  America,  uses  these  words:  "While,  of  all  the 
institutions  of  the  country,  they  are  those  of  which  the 
Americans  speak  most  modestly,  and,  indeed,  depre- 
catingly,  they  are  those  which  seem  to  be  at  this  very 
moment  making  the  swiftest  progress,  and  to  have  the 
best  promise  for  the  future.  They  are  supplying  exactly 
those  things  which  European  critics  have  hitherto  found 
lacking  in  America,  and  they  are  contributing  to  her 
political  as  well  as  to  her  contemplative  life  elements  of 
inestimable  worth." 

The  various  influences  —  German,  English,  and  Ameri- 
can— which  are  molding  our  higher  education,  are  join- 
ing together  to  produce  the  American  university.  And, 
as  Mr.  Bryce  has  clearly  indicated,  the  American 
university  is  becoming  an  institution  in  every  way  worthy 
of  our  great  republic.  Its  swaddling-clothes  of  English 
tradition  are  being  cast  aside,  and  it  is  growing  to  be 
American  in  the  high  sense  of  adjustment  to  the  Ameri- 
can people's  needs.  The  academic  work  of  the  best 
American  institutions  is  characterized  by  vigor  and 
thoroughness,  and  in  the  free  air  that  pervades  them 
there  is  every  promise  for  their  future. 

But  with  all  this,  the  professional  schools  of  America 

*  Published  in  The  Forum,  1895. 
150 


THE    AMERICAN   LAW   SCHOOL.  151 

have  not  taken  their  part  in  the  university  development. 
It  has  been  lately  said  of  the  American  law  schools,  for 
example,  that  they  are  the  weakest,  and  therefore  the 
worst,  to  be  found  in  any  civilized  country.  Broadly 
speaking,  and  taking  out  some  half-dozen  notable  excep- 
tions (not  so  many  nor  so  notable  as  they  should  be), 
this  statement  cannot  be  denied.  Of  this  deficiency,  its 
causes  and  its  remedy,  I  propose  briefly  to  treat  in  this 
paper. 

In  Europe,  professional  training  is  in  general  the  cul- 
mination of  university  education.  It  is  not  so  in  America. 
It  is  here  rather  a  "practical  short-cut,"  by  which  uned- 
ncated  or  ineducable  men  are  helped  to  the  rewards  of 
knowledge  and  skill  with  the  least  possible  loss  of  time. 
In  most  of  our  States  provision  is  made  for  a  system  of 
public  education  beginning  with  the  common  schools  and 
culminating  in  the  university.  The  law  schools,  however, 
in  the  different  States  form  no  part  of  this  system.  They 
are  rarely,  even,  in  real  alliance  with  it.  Their  place  is 
with  the  "independent  normal"  and  the  "school  of  ora- 
tory." Instead  of  a  requirement  of  general  intelligence 
and  a  special  knowledge  of  economics,  history,  literature, 
and  language,  as  a  preparation  for  the  study  of  law,  our 
law  schools  have  been  eager  to  admit  any  one  who  can 
pay  the  required  fees  and  perchance  read  the  English 
language. 

Instead  of  trained  professors  who  make  the  methods 
of  investigation  and  instruction  in  law  the  work  of  a  life- 
time, we  find  in  most  of  our  law  schools  lawyers  who 
have  turned  incidentally  to  teaching,  with  no  knowledge 
of  the  methods  by  which  teaching  may  be  made  effective. 
Some  of  them  are  young  men  who  have  not  yet  found 


152  LAW   SCHOOLS   AND    LAU^YERS. 

anything  more  serious  to  do.  But  usually  the  chairs  of 
law  are  occupied  by  broken-down  lawyers,  released  from 
active  practice  —  old  men  who  read  old  lectures  to 
audiences  inattentive  or  occupied  with  newspapers,  or 
who  conduct  a  lifeless  quiz  from  lifeless  text-books. 
Sometimes  these  veterans  of  a  thousand  fields  are  wise 
with  the  results  of  many  experiences.  These  teachers 
may  interest  and  inspire  their  students.  But  training 
they  seldom  give.  Only  the  man  with  whom  teaching 
is  the  first  interest  can  be  an  effective  teacher.  Able 
jurists  sometimes  fill  these  chairs,  men  still  in  active 
practice,  whose  hour  in  the  classroom  is  taken  early  in 
the  morning  or  late  in  the  afternoon,  before  or  after  the 
arduous  duties  of  a  day  in  court.  With  these  men  the 
court,  and  not  the  school,  occupies  their  thought  and  fills 
their  ambitions. 

The  law  students  are  in  general  assistants  in  law  offices 
or  clerks  in  business  establishments.  They  devote  their 
hours  outside  the  classroom,  not  to  library  research  or  to 
the  investigations  of  principles  and  precedents,  but  to 
the  making  of  money.  The  law  school  is  expected  not 
to  interrupt  their  usual  vocations.  The  atmosphere  of 
culture  which  surrounds  every  real  institution  of  learning, 
and  which  it  is  the  business  of  great  teachers  to  create, 
is  unknown  to  the  average  student  of  law. 

Often  the  law  school  appears  in  its  register  as  a  branch 
of  some  university.  In  most  such  cases  this  relation  is 
one  which  exists  only  in  name.  It  is  a  common  expres- 
sion that  such  and  such  a  college  is  * '  surrounded  by  a 
fringe  of  professional  schools."  These  exist  as  stolons 
or  suckers  around  a  stalk  of  corn,  rather  than  as  repre- 
senting "the  full  corn  in  the  ear."     When  a  nominal 


WALKING    INTO    A    PROFESSION.  153 

alliance  exists,  it  rests  not  often  on  unity  of  purpose  or 
method,  but  on  the  fact  of  mutual  service.  The  reputa- 
tion of  the  university  tends  to  advertise  the  law  school. 
The  roll  of  law  students  swells  the  apparent  attendance 
of  the  university.  By  the  number  of  names  on  the 
register  the  success  of  the  American  university  is  popu- 
larly measured. 

There  is,  besides,  a  strong  force  of  precedent,  which 
causes  each  new  law  school  to  be  modeled  on  the  lines 
of  the  old  ones.  These  influences,  and  others,  oblige 
our  universities  to  wink  at  the  obvious  incongruity  of  the 
requirement  of  elaborate  and  careful  preparation  for  the 
study  of  literature,  chemistry,  and  economics,  while  for 
the  study  of  law  a  mere  reading  acquaintance  with  the 
English  language  passes  as  adequate.  More  than  once 
college  faculties  in  this  matter  have  had  to  subordinate 
their  opinions  to  those  of  timid  boards  of  trustees,  who 
are  afraid  that  high  standards  in  a  law  school  would  be 
fatal  to  its  success,  measuring  success  in  the  conventional 
fashion,  as  boards  of  trustees  are  prone  to  do. 

It  is  thus  true,  as  President  Eliot  has  said,  that  into  an 
American  law  school  any  man  ' '  can  walk  from  the 
street."  But  in  most  of  the  States  he  can  do  better,  or 
worse,  than  this.  From  the  street  he  can  walk  directly 
into  the  profession  of  law,  disregarding  even  the  formulas 
of  matriculation  or  graduation.  Even  the  existence  of 
the  law  school  is  a  concession  to  educational  tradition. 
It  is  possible  with  us  to  enter  any  one  of  the  "learned 
professions"  with  no  learning  whatsoever.  In  fact,  in 
many  of  our  States  it  requires  no  more  preparation  to 
be  admitted  to  the  bar  than  to  be  admitted  to  the  saw- 
buck.     Fortunately,  admission  to  either  on  these  terms 


154  LAIV   SCHOOLS   AND    LAWYERS. 

carries  with  it  no  prestige  or  social  elevation  whatever. 
But  the  danger  in  the  one  case  is  greater  than  in  the 
other.  The  inefficient  lawyer  may  work  the  ruin  of 
interests  intrusted  to  him.  The  ignorant  physician  is 
more  dangerous  than  the  plague.  The  incompetent 
wood-sawyer  harms  only  the  wood-pile.  A  large  part  of 
our  criminal  records  is  devoted  to  legal  and  medical  mal- 
practice. In  other  words,  our  bulk  of  crime  is  swollen 
by  robbery  and  murder  committed  under  the  guise  of 
professional  assistance.  When  the  professions  cease  to 
be  open  wide  to  adventurers  and  thieves,  they  will  rise  to 
something  of  their  ancestral  dignity.  It  has  been  said 
that  the  only  "learned  profession  "  in  America  at  present 
is  that  of  engineer.  The  value  of  knowledge  and  train- 
ing in  the  various  applications  of  science  to  human  affairs 
has  always  been  recognized  among  us.  The  people  have 
freely  taxed  themselves  for  industrial  instruction,  and  it 
is  now  generally  recognized  as  a  necessary  part  of  the 
State  university  system.  The  faculty  in  mechanic  arts 
stands  on  an  equality  with  the  university  faculties,  and  ii 
general  the  standards  of  admission  and  methods  of  work 
in  these  branches  compare  favorably  with  those  in  any 
other  field.  The  reason  for  this  is  not  far  to  seek.  The 
necessity  of  education  in  these  lines  is  self-evident.  Men 
cannot  trifle  with  the  forces  of  nature.  The  incompe- 
tence, or  ignorance,  or  dishonesty  of  an  engineer  will 
soon  make  itself  evident.  The  incompetence  of  men  in 
other  professions  is  not  less  disastrous,  but  it  is  more 
easily  concealed.  And  for  this  reason  the  common  man 
regards  it  with  greater  indifference. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  essential  weakness  of  the 
American  law  school,  as  well  as  that  of  our  professional 


JAMES    BRADLEY    THAYER.  155 

schools  in  general,  lies  in  the  method  of  organization. 
They  have  lost  their  place  in  the  university.  In  a  recent 
address,*  Professor  James  Bradley  Thayer  has  these 
strong  words: 

' '  We  must  not  be  content  with  a  mere  lip  service,  with 
merely  tagging  our  law  schools  with  the  name  of  a  uni- 
versity, while  they  lack  entirely  the  university  spirit  and 
character.  What,  then,  does  our  undertaking  involve, 
and  what  that  conception  of  the  study  of  our  English 
system  of  law,  which,  in  Blackstone's  phrase,  'extends 
the  pomoeria  of  university  learning,  and  adopts  this  new 
tribe  of  citizens  within  these  philosophical  walls '  ?  It 
means  this:  that  our  law  must  be  studied  and  taught  as 
other  great  sciences  are  taught  at  the  universities,  as 
deeply,  by  like  methods,  and  with  a  concentration  and 
lifelong  devotion  of  all  the  powers  of  a  learned  and  stu- 
dious faculty.  If  our  law  be  not  a  science  worthy,  and 
requiring  to  be  thus  studied  and  thus  taught,  then,  as  a 
distinguished  lawyer  has  remarked,  'a  university  will 
best  consult  its  own  dignity  in  declining  to  teach  it.' 
This  is  the  plow  to  which  our  ancestors  here  in  America 
set  their  hand,  and  to  which  we  have  set  ours;  and  we 
must  see  to  it  that  the  furrow  is  handsomely  turned. 

"  But  who  is  there,  I  may  be  asked,  to  study  law  in 
this  way?  Who  is  to  have  the  time  for  it  and  the  oppor- 
tunity? Let  me  ask  a  question  in  return,  and  answer 
it.  Who  is  it  that  studies  the  natural  or  physical  sciences, 
engineering,  philology,  history,  theology,  or  medical 
science  in  this  way  ?  First  of  all,  those  who,  for  any 
reason,  propose  to  master  these  subjects,  to  make  true 

•  "  University  Teaching  of  EngDsh  Law."  Address  before  the  American 
Bar  Association,  Detroit,  Angust  37,  1895. 


156  LAW   SCHOOLS    AND    LAWYERS. 

and  exact  statements  of  them,  and  to  carry  forward  in 
these  regions  the  limits  of  human  knowledge,  and 
especially  the  teachers  of  these  things;  second,  not  in 
so  great  a  degree,  but  each  as  far  as  he  may,  the 
leaders  in  the  practical  application  of  these  branches  of 
knowledge  to  human  affairs;  third,  in  a  still  less  degree, 
yet  in  some  degree,  all  practitioners  of  these  subjects,  if 
I  may  use  that  phrase,  who  wish  to  understand  their 
business  and  to  do  it  thoroughly  well. 

"Precisely  the  same  thing  is  true  in  law  as  in  these  or 
any  other  of  the  great  parts  of  human  knowledge.  In 
all  it  is  alike  beneficial  and  alike  necessary  for  the  vigor- 
ous and  fruitful  development  of  the  subject,  for  the  best 
performance  of  the  every-day  work  of  the  calling  to 
which  they  relate,  and  for  the  best  carrying  out  of  the 
plain,  practical  duties  of  each  man's  place,  that  some- 
where, and  by  some  persons,  these  subjects  should  be 
investigated  with  the  deepest  research  and  the  most 
searching  critical  study. 

' '  The  time  has  gone  by  when  it  was  necessary  to  vin- 
dicate the  utility  of  deep  and  lifelong  investigations  into 
the  nature  of  electricity  and  the  mode  of  its  operation; 
into  the  nature  of  light,  and  heat,  and  sound,  and  the 
laws  that  govern  their  action;  into  the  minute  niceties 
of  the  chemical  and  physiological  laboratory,  the  specu- 
lations and  experiments  of  geology,  or  the  absorbing 
calculations  of  the  mathematician  or  astronomer.  Men 
do  not  now  need  to  be  told  what  it  is  that  has  given 
them  the  steam-engine,  the  telegraph,  the  telephone, 
the  electric  railway  and  the  electric  light,  the  telescope, 
the  improved  lighthouse,  the  lucifer  match,  antiseptic 
surgery,  the  prophylactics  against  sro-^U-pox  and  diph- 


THE  USE  OF  THOROUGH  KNOWLEDGE.     157 

theria,  aluminum  the  new  metal,  and  the  triumphs  of 
modern  engineering.  These  things  are  mainly  the  out- 
come of  what  seemed  to  the  majority  of  mankind  useless 
and  unpractical  study  and  experiment. 

' '  But,  as  regards  our  law,  those  who  press  the 
importance  of  thorough  and  scientific  study  are  not  yet 
exempt  from  the  duty  of  pointing  out  the  use  of  it  and 
its  necessity.  To  say  nothing  of  the  widespread  skepti- 
cism among  a  certain  class  of  practical  men,  in  and  out 
of  our  profession,  as  to  the  advantages  of  everything  of 
the  sort,  there  is  also,  among  those  who  nominally  admit 
it,  and  even  advocate  it,  a  remarkable  failure  to  appreciate 
what  this  admission  means.  It  is  the  simple  truth  that 
you  cannot  have  thorough  and  first-rate  training  in  law 
any  more  than  in  physical  science,  unless  you  have  a 
body  of  learned  teachers;  and  you  cannot  have  a  learned 
faculty  of  law  unless,  like  other  faculties,  they  give  their 
lives  to  the  work.  The  main  secret  of  teaching  law,  as 
of  all  teaching,  is  what  Socrates  declared  to  be  the  secret 
of  eloquence — understanding  your  subject;  and  that 
requires,  as  regards  any  one  of  the  great  heads  of  our 
law,  in  the  present  stage  of  our  science,  an  enormous 
and  absorbing  amount  of  labor. " 

This  separation,  which  I  have  tried  to  describe,  exists 
only  in  America.  For  this  separation,  the  popular  desire 
to  reach  these  professions  by  short  cuts,  and  the  popular 
distrust  of  those  who  have  done  so,  are  equally  respon- 
sible. 

Our  people  have  always  been  willing  to  tax  themselves 
to  furnish  a  general  education  for  their  children.  The 
common-school  idea  from  the  very  first  has  included  a 
liberal  education.    But  in  most  of  the  States  the  people 


158  LAW   SCHOOLS   AND    LAWYERS. 

have  at  one  time  or  another  definitely  refused  to  devote 
public  funds  to  the  making  of  lawyers  and  doctors. 
They  would  not,  at  their  expense,  help  men  into  profes- 
sions they  believed  to  be  overpaid  as  well  as  overcrowded. 
This  policy  has  been  a  most  shortsighted  one.  It  has 
been  responsible  for  the  existence  in  every  part  of  our 
country  of  hordes  of  pettifoggers  and  quacks,  who  rob 
the  people  instead  of  serving  them.  Incompetent  pro- 
fessional service  is  always  robbery.  The  professions  are 
overcrowded  simply  because  they  have  ceased  to  be 
professions.  The  remedy  for  incompetence  is  found  in 
insisting  on  competence.  This  can  be  done  by  furnish- 
ing means  by  which  competence  can  be  possible. 

The  forces  which  have  operated  here  are  necessarily 
associated  with  the  growth  of  democracy.  The  move- 
ment of  civilization  has  been  constantly  in  the  direction 
of  the  extension  of  the  powers  and  privileges  of  the  few 
to  the  many.  By  this  influence  careers  and  distinctions 
once  reserved  for  the  aristocracy  have  been  opened  to 
the  common  man.  One  immediate  result — temporary, 
I  believe, — is  that  the  common  man  has  invaded  these 
T)rovinces  without  abating  one  whit  of  his  commonness. 
This  is  a  necessary  phase  of  the  vulgarization  which 
follows  the  extension  of  justice  known  as  democracy. 
it  is  connected  with  the  vulgarization  of  the  press,  the 
theater,  the  pulpit,  which  must  follow  their  adjustment 
to  the  needs  of  the  many,  rather  than  to  the  finer  tastes 
or  juster  judgment  of  the  few.  The  common  man  is 
satisfied  with  common  lawyers.  When  he  ceases  to  be 
thus  satisfied,  he  is  no  longer  common.  That  his  free- 
dom of  choice  and  the  training  which  results  from  it 
will,  in  the  long  run,  eliminate  this  vulgarization,  is  the 


POOR     TEACHING    NOT   DEMANDED.      159 

justification  for  democracy.  Our  hope  for  the  future 
lies  largely  in  our  recognition  of  the  badness  of  the  pres- 
ent. From  the  weakness  of  our  professional  schools  the 
common  man  is  the  chief  sufferer.  And  already  he  is 
joining  in  the  demand  that  these  schools  be  made  better. 
It  is  one  virtue  of  democracy  that  it  is  free  to  meet 
its  own  demands.  It  is  absolutely  certain  that  those 
schools  whose  work  is  most  thorough  and  whose  require- 
ments are  most  exacting  will  have  the  most  students, 
as  well  as  the  best  ones.  It  is  not  true  that  the  stu- 
dents of  America  demand  poor  instruction  because  it  is 
cheap. 

Notwithstanding  all  adverse  conditions,  there  have 
been  many  great  teachers  of  law  in  America,  as  there 
have  been  and  are  many  great  lawyers.  The  great  teacher 
makes  his  influence  felt,  whatever  the  defects  in  the 
organization  of  the  institution  which  claims  his  services. 
The  present  strength  of  the  University  of  Michigan 
rests  in  large  degree  on  the  work  of  Thomas  M.  Cooley. 
The  work  of  John  B.  Minor  in  the  University  of  Vir- 
ginia gave  a  well-deserved  prominence  to  the  Virginia 
School  of  Law.  Theodore  Dwight  was  once  the  Law 
School  of  Columbia  College.  Other  law  professors  have 
added  in  no  small  degree  to  the  prestige  of  Harvard, 
Cornell,  and  the  University  of  Pennsylvania.  In  all 
these  institutions  a  strenuous  effort  has  been  made  to 
place  the  work  in  law  on  a  basis  not  less  high  than  that 
occupied  by  history  and  economics.  In  other  words, 
in  these  and  in  some  other  institutions  the  law  faculty 
is  to  be  not  an  "annex,"  but  an  integral  part  of  the 
faculty  of  the  university.  When  this  is  done,  the 
requirements  for  graduation  as  a  lawyer  will  not  be  less 


l6o  LAW    SCHOOLS    AND    LAWYERS. 

than  equivalent  to  the  work  for  which  a  degree  would 
be  granted  to  a  chemist  or  a  civil  engineer. 

To  find  the  cause  of  any  deficiency  is  to  go  a  long 
way  toward  curing  it.  In  this  case,  it  seems  to  me,  the 
remedy  lies  in  placing  the  instruction  in  law  on  the  same 
footing  as  that  of  other  departments  of  the  university. 
The  teaching  of  law  should  be  a  life  work  in  itself.  The 
requirements  and  methods  in  law  should  be  abreast  of 
the  best  work  in  any  department.  The  university  atmo- 
sphere and  the  university  ideals  should  surround  the 
student  in  law  as  well  as  the  student  in  history.  No  one 
should  be  encouraged  to  take  professional  studies  until 
he  is  capable  of  carrying  them  on  seriously  and  success- 
fully. 

There  is,  moreover,  no  reason  for  segregating  the 
teachers  of  law  in  any  way  from  the  other  members 
of  the  university  faculty.  As  well  make  chemistry  or 
economics  a  separate  school,  as  to  set  off  the  law  by 
itself.  All  these  separations  may  be  made  in  name,  but 
they  should  not  exist  in  fact.  The  elements  of  law  have 
as  strong  claim  to  a  place  in  general  education  as  the 
elements  of  geometry  or  psychology.  Even  for  purpose 
of  professional  education,  it  is  better  that  the  study  of 
law  should  be  carried  on  simultaneously  with  that  of  the 
historical  and  social  sciences,  which  are  its  natural  asso- 
ciates. The  basis  of  law  is  in  the  nature  of  man,  not 
in  the  statutes  of  the  United  States,  nor  in  those  of  Eng- 
land. The  common  law  has  it  source  in  man  and  his 
civilization,  not  in  the  books.  This  the  student  must 
learn  to  know  and  feel.  So  history,  social  science,  and 
law  must  be  mutually  dependent  on  one  another.  The 
student  of  the  one  cannot  be   ignorant  of  the  others. 


EDUCATE    YOUR    RULERS.  i6i 

The  suggestion  that  social  studies  should  accompany 
rather  than  precede  law  studies  has  lately  received  the 
strong  advocacy  of  Dr.  Woodrow  Wilson  and  Professor 
Ernest  W.  Huffcut.*  This  association  should  give  to 
the  student  not  only  a  lawyer's  training,  but  a  scholar's 
horizon.  Without  this,  broad  views  in  jurisprudence 
and  in  politics  are  impossible.  Such  a  course  of  study 
would  give  dignity  to  the  general  culture  of  the  college. 
A  student  takes  a  better  hold  on  culture  studies  where 
they  are  clearly  related  to  the  work  of  his  life. 

Moreover,  the  politicians  of  each  country  are  for  the 
most  part  its  lawyers.    Our  lawyers  are  our  rulers,  f   We 

•Professor  Huficut  says:  "We  may  safely  give  our  assent  to  the  plan 
whereby  the  study  of  law  is  to  be  treated  like  the  study  of  any  other  branch 
of  human  knowledge;  that  the  preparation  for  it  should  be  mainly  the  same 
as  for  the  study  of  history  and  political  science ;  and  the  law,  upon  the  one 
hand,  and  history,  political  science,  and  philosophy,  upon  the  other,  will 
profit  from  the  closer  union  between  the  two.  I  confess  that  this  plan  has  for 
me  personally  many  attractive  features.  It  drives  out  at  the  outset  the  pro- 
fessional or  technical  atmosphere  which  is  likely  to  surround  the  law  when 
disconnected  from  other  human  interests.  It  brings  the  law  school  into  the 
warmth  and  color  and  light  of  a  general  university  atmosphere.  It  relates 
the  subject  of  law  logically  and  consistently  to  the  general  field  of  political 
science.  The  student  from  the  outset  of  his  studies  in  the  field  of  law  is 
encouraged,  if  not  compelled,  to  make  constant  investigations  in  history,  polit- 
ical science,  and  government,  which  cannot  fail  to  give  him  a  broader  appre- 
hension of  the  true  meaning  and  import  of  legal  institutions  and  the  admin- 
istration of  justice.  Our  law  schools  are  parts  of  a  university  system.  By 
making  them  organic  parts  of  such  system,  asking  our  colleagues  of  the  uni- 
versities to  recognize  that  our  work  is  part  and  parcel  of  their  own,  and  our- 
selves Crankly  recognizing  that  theirs  is  essential  to  the  success  of  ours,  we 
shall  yrt  arrive  at  a  solution  of  our  problem  which  shall  advance  the  interests 
of  legal  education  and  of  sound  learning."  (Hufifcut:  Transactions  Ameri- 
can Bar  Association,  Detroit,  1895.) 

tMr.  James  DeWitt  Andrews  says:  "  One  might  almost  say  that  this  was 
a  government  of  the  lawyers  by  the  lawyers.  Of  the  lawyers,  because  of  the 
prominent,  almost  controlling,  part  they  played  in  its  institutions;  by  the  law- 
yers, because  of  the  important  part  they  have  taken  in  its  administration. 
In  every  branch  of  government  — legislative,  executive,  and  judicial, —  lawyers 
have  always  predominated  ;  but  so  well  have  they  borne  in  mind  the  ethics  of 
the  profession,  that  their  office,  whether  in  the  administration  of  justice  or 

L 


i62  LAW   SCHOOLS    AND    LAWYERS. 

can  never  hope  to  see  our  State  well  governed  till  its 
lawyers  are  well  trained.  Our  greatness  has  been  in 
large  degree  the  work  of  our  great  jurists.  To  know 
the  law  —  not  merely  the  statutes,  or  the  tricks  for  evad- 
ing them, —  makes  men  great.  Of  these  we  have  had 
many,  though  scant  our  provision  for  their  training  has 
been.  There  can  be  no  political  conscience  except  as  an 
outcome  of  political  knowledge.  Right  acting  can  only 
come  as  a  result  of  right  thinking.  The  men  who  think 
right  will,  in  the  long  run,  act  in  accord  with  their 
knowledge.  Those  who  have  known  that  there  is  a 
science  of  human  institutions  can  never  wholly  forget 
that  fact.  There  can  be  no  right  thinking  in  matters  of 
public  administration  without  a  knowledge  of  the  laws 
of  growth  of  human  institutions.  Only  in  accordance 
with  these  laws  is  good  government  possible.  Of  these 
fundamental  laws  of  being  the  statutes  of  man  must  be 
an  expression.  Where  they  are  not  so  the  people  have 
sooner  or  later  a  fearful  score  to  pay.  The  Fates  charge 
compound  interest  on  every  human  blunder,  and  they 
have  their  own  way  at  the  last. 

when  coupled  with  other  public  trusts,  is  but  an  agency  and  a  trust,  that  their 
real  supremacy  has  never  been  felt.  Whoever  impugns  the  integrity  of  the 
profession  at  large  casts  a  slur  on  the  nation."  (Andrews:  "The  Works  of 
James  Wilson,"  VoL  I,  preface.") 


THE    PRACTICAL    EDUCATION. 

A  PRACTICAL  education  is  one  which  can  be  made 
effective  in  life.  We  often  abuse  the  word  practi- 
cal by  making  it  synonymous  with  temporary  or  super- 
ficial. It  should  mean  just  the  opposite.  An  education 
which  takes  but  little  time  and  less  effort,  and  leads  at  once 
to  a  paying  situation,  is  not  practical.  It  is  not  good, 
because  it  will  never  lead  to  anything  better.  An  edu- 
cation which  does  not  disclose  the  secret  of  power  is 
unworthy  the  name.  Nothing  is  really  practical  which 
does  not  provide  for  growth  in  effectiveness.  There  is 
nothing  more  practical  than  knowledge,  nothing  more 
unpractical  than  ignorance  ;  nothing  more  practical  than 
sunshine,  nothing  less  so  than  darkness.  The  chief 
essentials  of  education  should  be  thoroughness  and  fit- 
ness. The  most  thorough  training  is  the  most  practical, 
provided  only  that  it  is  fitted  to  the  end  in  view.  The 
essential  fault  of  educational  systems  of  the  past  is  that, 
in  search  for  breadth  and  thoroughness,  the  element  of 
fitness  was  forgotten.  We  have  tried,  as  we  used  to  say, 
to  make  well-rounded  men,  *  *  men  who  stand  four-square 
to  every  wind  that  blows."  This  is  a  training  better 
fitted  for  hitching-posts  or  windmills  than  for  men.  This 
is  the  day  of  special  knowledge.  Only  by  doing  some 
one  thing  better  than  any  one  else,  can  a  man  find  a 
worthy  place  in  our  complex  social  fabric.     The  ability 

163 


i64  THE    PRACTICAL    EDUCATION. 

to  do  a  hundred  things  in  an  inferior  way  will  not  help 
him.  This  is  a  fact  our  schools  must  recognize.  No 
man  is  great  by  chance  in  these  days.  If  one  is  to  do 
anything  of  importance  he  must  first  understand  what 
he  is  to  do,  and  then  set  about  it  with  all  his  might. 

Men  of  affairs  often  sneer  at  college  men  and  college 
methods.  Some  of  their  criticisms  are  justified,  others 
not.  Such  justification  as  they  may  have  had  is  found 
in  the  lack  of  fitness  in  college  training.  Among  condi- 
tions of  life  infinitely  varied  the  college  has  decreed  that 
all  boys  should  take  the  same  studies,  in  the  same  way, 
and  at  the  same  time,  and  that  these  studies  should  be 
the  routine  of  the  English  boy  of  a  century  ago.  In 
thus  repeating  the  thoughts  and  learning  of  nations  half 
forgotten,  the  minds  of  some  '  *  Greek-minded ' '  and 
"  Roman-minded  "  men  were  stimulated  to  their  highest 
activity,  and  for  them  such  training  was  good  and  ade- 
quate. 

But  there  were  some,  "American-minded"  perhaps, 
whose  powers  were  not  awakened  by  such  influences. 
These  came  forth  from  the  college  walls  into  the  life  of 
the  world,  as  Rip  Van  Winkle  from  the  Catskills,  dazed 
by  the  new  experiences  to  which  their  studies  had  given 
no  clue. 

I  do  not  wish  to  depreciate  the  value  of  classical 
training.  There  is  a  higher  point  of  view  than  that  of 
mere  utility,  and  the  beautiful  forms  and  noble  thoughts 
of  ancient  literature  have  been  a  lifelong  source  of  inspi- 
ration to  thousands  who  have  made  no  direct  use  of  their 
college  studies  in  the  affairs  of  life.  But  there  are  other 
sources  of  inspiration  which,  in  their  way,  may  affect 
many  to  whom  Latin  or  Greek  would  be  a  meaningless 


WORK    THAT   LASTS.  165 

grind.  For  such  as  these  a  different  training  is  neces- 
sary, if  our  education  is  to  be  practical.  The  schools 
of  the  future  will  avoid  not  only  bad  training,  but  also 
"misfit"  training;  for  the  time  of  the  student  is  so 
precious  that  no  part  of  it  should  be  wrongly  used. 

The  remedy  for  the  evils  of  misfit  training  is  not  to 
discard  the  high  standards  or  the  thorough  drill  of  the 
old  college,  but  to  apply  it  to  a  wider  range  of  studies. 
No  two  students  are  ever  quite  alike,  and  no  two  will 
ever  follow  exactly  the  same  career.  If  we  work  to  the 
best  advantage,  no  two  will  ever  follow  the  same  course 
of  study.  And  thus  recognizing  in  our  efforts  the 
infinite  variations  of  human  nature,  the  work  of  higher 
education  acquires  an  effectiveness  which  it  could  never 
have  under  the  cast-iron  systems  of  the  traditional  col- 
lege. Misfit  training  is  good  only  as  compared  with  no 
training  at  all.  Any  sort  of  activity  is  better  than  stag- 
nation. 

The  purpose  of  right  training  is  to  prepare  for  work 
which  is  to  last.  There  is  enough  already  of  poor  and 
careless  work.  Whatever  is  done  needs  to  be  done 
well.  Let  it  be  done  honesdy  —  not  as  to-day's  make- 
shift, but  as  done  for  all  time. 

High  under  the  roof  of  the  Cathedral  of  Cologne 
there  is  many  an  image  carved  in  stone  and  wrought 
with  the  most  exquisite  care,  but  which  human  eye  has 
never  seen  since  it  was  first  placed  in  the  niche  in  which 
it  stands.  This  work  of  the  Gothic  sculptors  was  done 
for  the  sight  of  God,  and  not  for  the  worship  of  man. 
The  Cathedral  of  Cologne  was  almost  a  thousand  years 
in  building.  I  saw,  the  other  day,  a  cathedral  in  one 
of  our  Eastern  cities,  built  in  barely  as  many  weeks  as 


i66  THE    PRACTICAL    EDUCATION. 

the  other  in  centuries.  The  marble  sculptures  on  its 
lofty  towers  are  made  of  sheet-iron,  zinc-lined,  and 
painted  to  represent  stone.  Such  is  the  work  of  modern 
cathedral  builders.  But  the  slow-moving  centuries  will 
show  the  difference. 

A  Swiss  watchmaker  said  the  other  day:  "Your 
American  manufacturers  cannot  establish  themselves  in 
Europe.  The  first  sample  you  send  is  all  right,  the 
second  lot  begins  to  drop  off,  the  third  destroys  your 
reputation,  and  the  fourth  puts  an  end  to  your  trade. 
All  you  seem  to  care  for  is  to  make  money.  What  you 
want  is  some  pride  in  your  work."  If  this  has  been 
true  of  American  watchmakers,  it  should  be  true  no 
longer.  The  work  that  lasts  must  be  not  the  quickest, 
but  the  best.  Let  it  be  done,  not  to  require  each  year  a 
fresh  coat  of  paint,  but  done  as  if  to  last  forever,  and 
some  of  it  will  endure.  This  world  is  crowded  on  its 
lower  floor,  but  higher  up,  for  centuries  to  come,  there 
will  still  remain  a  niche  for  each  piece  of  honest  work. 

' '  Profligacy, ' '  says  Emerson,  ' '  consists  not  in  spend- 
ing, but  in  spending  off  the  line  of  your  career.  The 
crime  which  bankrupts  men  and  States  is  job  work, 
declining  from  your  main  design  to  serve  a  turn  here  or 
there.  Nothing  is  beneath  you,  if  in  the  direction  of 
your  life;  nothing,  to  you,  is  great  or  desirable,  if  it  be 
off  from  that." 

The  test  of  civilization  is  the  saving  of  labor.  The 
great  economic  waste  of  the  world  is  that  involved  in 
unskilled  labor.  The  gain  of  the  nineteenth  century 
over  the  eighteenth  is  the  gain  of  skill  in  workmanship. 
But  with  all  our  progress  in  labor-saving,  we  have  yet 
far  to  go  before  our  use  of  labor  shall  balance  our  waste 


THE     WASTE    OF    LABOR.  167 

of  it.  The  work  which  goes  to  waste  in  Europe,  even 
now,  through  lack  of  training  and  lack  of  proper  tools, 
is  greater  than  all  the  losses  through  wars  and  standing 
armies  and  the  follies  of  hereditary  caste.  It  is  second 
only  to  the  waste  due  to  idleness  itself.  For  idleness 
there  is  no  remedy  so  effective  as  training.  To  know 
how  to  do  is  to  have  a  pride  and  pleasure  in  doing.  In 
the  long  run,  there  is  no  force  making  for  virtue  and 
sobriety  so  strong  as  the  influence  of  skill 

If  a  man  knows  how  to  do  and  how  to  act,  he  is 
assured  against  half  the  dangers  which  beset  life. 
Training  of  the  hand,  training  of  the  mind,  training 
of  any  kind,  which  g^ves  the  man  the  power  to  do 
something  which  he  knows  to  be  genuine,  gives  him 
self-respect,  makes  a  man  of  him,  not  a  tool,  or  a  force, 
or  a  thing. 

An  unskilled  laborer  is  a  relic  of  past  ages  and  condi- 
tions. He  is  a  slave  in  a  time  when  enforced  slavery 
is  past.  The  waste  which  comes  from  doing  poor  things 
in  poor  ways  keeps  half  of  humanity  forever  poor.  What 
the  unskilled  man  can  do,  a  bucket  of  coal  and  a  bucket 
of  water,  guided  by  "  a  thimbleful  of  brains,"  will  do  more 
effectively.  It  is  the  mission  of  industrial  training  to  put 
an  end  to  unskilled  labor;  to  make  each  workman  a  free 
man.  When  the  time  shall  come  when  each  workman 
can  use  his  powers  to  the  best  advantage  we  shall  have 
an  end  to  the  labor  problem.  The  final  answer  of  the  labor 
problem  is  that  each  should  solve  it  for  himself. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  training  of  the  hand;  but  all 
training  belongs  to  the  brain,  and  all  kinds  of  training 
are  of  like  nature.  The  hand  is  the  servant  of  the  brain, 
and  can  receive  nothing  of  itself.     There  is   no  such 


i68  THE    PRACTICAL    EDUCATION. 

thing  as  manual  training  as  distinguished  from  training 
of  the  intellect.  There  is  brain  behind  every  act  of  the 
hand.  The  muscles  are  the  mind's  only  servants. 
Whether  we  speak  of  training  an  orator,  a  statesman, 
or  a  merchant,  or  a  mechanic,  the  same  language  must 
be  used.  The  essential  is  that  the  means  should  lead 
toward  the  end  to  be  reached. 

An  ignorant  man  is  a  man  who  has  fallen  behind  our 
civilization  and  cannot  avail  himself  of  his  light.  He  finds 
himself  in  darkness,  in  an  unknown  land.  He  stumbles 
over  trifling  obstacles  because  he  does  not  understand 
them.  He  cannot  direct  his  course.  The  real  dangers 
are  all  hidden,  while  the  most  innocent  rock  or  bush 
seems  a  menacing  giant.  He  is  not  master  of  the  situ- 
ation. We  have  but  one  life  to  live;  let  that  be  an  effect- 
ive one,  not  one  that  wastes  at  every  turn  through  the 
loss  of  knowledge  or  lack  of  skill.  What  sunlight  is 
to  the  eye  education  is  to  the  intellect,  and  the  most 
thorough  education  is  always  the  most  practical.  No 
traveler  is  contented  to  go  about  with  a  lantern  when 
he  could  as  well  have  the  sun.  If  he  can  have  a  com- 
pass and  a  map  also,  so  much  the  better.  But  let  his 
equipment  be  fitting.  Let  him  not  take  an  ax  if  there 
be  no  trees  to  chop,  nor  a  boat  unless  he  is  to  cross  a 
river,  nor  a  Latin  grammar  if  he  is  to  deal  with  bridge- 
building,  unless  the  skill  obtained  by  mastering  the  one 
gives  him  insight  into  the  other. 

I  often  meet  parents  who  wish  to  give  their  sons  a  prac- 
tical education.  They  think  of  practical  as  something 
cheap  and  easy.  A  little  drawing,  a  little  tinkering  with 
machinery,  a  little  bookkeeping  of  imaginary  accounts, 
and  their  sons  are  "ready  for  business. "     "  Ready  for 


EDUCATION   FOR    BUSINESS.  169 

business,"  as  though  the  complex  problems  of  finance 
were  to  be  solved  by  a  knowledge  of  bookkeepmg  by 
double-entry!  Life  is  more  serious  than  that.  It  takes 
a  thorough  education  to  make  a  successful  business  man. 
Not  the  education  of  the  schools,  we  say, —  and  it  may  be 
so;  but  if  so,  it  is  the  fault  of  the  schools.  They  ought 
to  make  good  business  men  as  well  as  to  make  good  men 
in  any  other  profession.  They  ought  to  fit  men  for  life. 
Why  do  the  great  majority  of  merchants  fail }  Is  it  not 
because  they  do  not  know  how  to  succeed?  Is  it  not 
because  they  have  not  the  brains  and  the  skill  to  com- 
pete with  those  who  had  both  brains  and  training?  Is 
it  not  because  they  do  not  realize  that  there  are  laws 
of  finance  and  commerce  as  inexorable  as  the  law  of 
gravitation  ?  A  man  will  stand  erect  because  he  stands 
in  accord  with  the  law  of  gravitation.  A  man  or  a  nation 
will  grow  rich  by  working  in  accord  with  the  laws  which 
govern  the  accumulation  of  wealth.  If  there  are  such 
laws,  men  should  know  them.  What  men  must  know 
the  schools  can  teach. 

The  schools  will  indeed  do  a  great  work  if  they  teach 
the  existence  of  law.  Half  the  people  of  America  be- 
lieve this  is  a  world  of  chance.  Half  of  them  believe 
they  are  victims  of  bad  luck  when  they  receive  the  re- 
wards of  their  own  stupidity.  Half  of  them  believe  that 
they  are  favorites  of  fortune,  and  will  be  helped  out 
somehow,  regardless  of  what  they  may  do.  Now  and 
then  some  man  catches  a  falling  apple,  picks  up  a  penny 
from  the  dust,  or  a  nugget  from  the  gulch.  Then  his 
neighbors  set  to  looking  into  the  sky  for  apples,  or  into 
the  dust  for  pennies,  as  though  pennies  and  apples  come 
in  that  way.     Waiting  for  chances  never  made  anybody 


I70  THE    PRACTICAL    EDUCATION. 

rich.  The  Golden  Age  of  California  began  when  gold 
no  longer  came  by  chance.  There  is  more  gold  in  the 
black  adobe  of  the  Santa  Clara  Valley  than  existed  in 
the  whole  great  range  of  the  Sierras  until  men  sought 
for  it,  not  by  luck  or  chance,  but  by  system  and  science. 
Whatever  is  worth  having  comes  because  we  have  earned 
it.  There  is  but  one  way  to  earn  anything  —  that  is  to 
find  out  the  laws  which  govern  production,  and  to  shape 
our  actions  in  accordance  with  these  laws.  Good  luck 
never  comes  to  the  capable  man  as  a  surprise.  He  is 
prepared  for  it,  because  it  was  the  very  thing  he  has 
a  right  to  expect  Sooner  or  later,  and  after  many  hard 
raps,  every  man  who  lives  long  enough  will  find  this 
out.  When  he  does  so,  he  has  the  key  to  success, 
though  it  may  be  too  late  to  use  it. 

It  is  the  work  of  the  school  to  give  these  laws  reality 
in  the  mind  of  the  student.  The  school  can  bring  the 
student  face  to  face  with  these  laws,  and  even  teach  him 
to  make  them  do  his  bidding.  If  we  work  with  them, 
these  laws  are  as  tractable  as  the  placid  flow  of  a  mighty 
river.  If  we  struggle  against  them,  they  make  the  ter- 
rible havoc  of  an  uncontrolled  flood.  To  ignore  them 
is  to  defy  them.  From  our  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  na- 
ture arise  the  achievements  of  civilization.  These  are  our 
knowledge  wrought  into  action.  The  thing  we  under- 
stand becomes  our  servant.  Whatever  we  know  we  can 
have.  But  whatever  we  conquer,  our  victory  is  a  tri- 
umph of  knowledge. 

We  speak  of  this  age  as  the  age  of  inventions,  the  age 
of  man's  conquest  of  the  forces  of  nature.  But  the  man 
who  invents  or  constructs  machinery  is  not  the  conqueror. 
It  is  easy  for  one  to  harness  the  lightning  when  another 


PURE  SCIENCE  BEFORE  APPLIED  SCIENCE.  171 

has  shown  him  the  lightning's  nature  and  ways.  It  is 
easier  still  to  repeat  what  others  have  done.  The  appli- 
cations of  science  are  only  an  incident  in  the  growth  of 
science.  The  electric  light  and  the  locomotive  follow 
sooner  or  later,  as  a  matter  of  course,  when  we  have  found 
the  laws  which  govern  electric  currents  and  the  expansive 
power  of  steam.  It  is  this  knowledge  which  gives  con- 
trol over  the  forces  of  nature.  It  is  by  investigation,  not 
through  application  or  repetition,  that  man's  power  ad- 
vances. It  is  the  investigator  who  comes  in  contact  with 
the  unveiled  ways  of  God.  The  applications  of  elec- 
tricity to  common  purposes  have  been  for  the  most  part 
made  in  our  day,  but  the  knowledge  on  which  they  are 
based  goes  back  to  the  earliest  investigators  of  physical 
laws.  These  men  forced  their  way  into  the  infinite  dark- 
ness, regardless  of  the  multitude  that  would  crowd  into 
their  path.  An  investigator  is  the  cause  of  a  thousand 
inventors.  A  Faraday  or  a  Helmholtz  is  the  parent  of  a 
thousand  Edisons.  Without  the  help  of  the  university 
Edisons  arc  possible.  Only  the  highest  training  can 
make  a  Helmholtz;  for  no  man  can  reach  the  highest 
rank  who  has  not  entered  into  all  the  work  of  all  his 
predecessors. 

And  this  brings  me  to  say  that  the  great  work  of  a 
university  is  to  be  the  center  of  investigation.  It  should 
be  the  source  of  new  truths  —  of  new  conquests  in  every 
field.  To  it  will  come  for  the  brief  course  of  training 
and  guidance  many  who,  in  the  maturity  of  their  lives, 
will  accomplish  much  good  for  their  fellow-men.  In  the 
ever-increasing  circle  of  human  knowledge  new  fields  are 
being  constantly  opened.  The  whole  knowledge  of  the 
last  generation  must  be  taken  for  granted  as  the  basis  of 


172  THE    PRACTICAL    EDUCATION. 

advancement  for  the  next.  Not  till  the  circle  of  human 
knowledge  has  widened  to  infinity,  shall  we  comprehend 
the  infinite  goodness  of  God. 


XL 

SCIENCE  IN  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL.* 

THE  purpose  of  science-teaching  as  a  part  of  general 
education  is  this  —  to  train  the  judgment  through 
its  exercise  on  first-hand  knowledge.  The  student  of 
science  is  taught  to  know  what  he  knows  and  to  dis- 
tinguish it  from  what  he  merely  remembers  or  imagines. 
Our  contact  with  the  universe  is  the  source  of  all  our 
knowledge.  This  knowledge  tested  and  set  in  order  we 
call  science.  Throughout  the  ages,  the  growth  of  the 
human  mind  has  been  in  direct  proportion  to  the  breadth 
of  this  contact.  To  the  man  without  knowledge  of 
science,  the  universe  seems  small.  Science  is  our  per- 
ception of  realities;  and  as  the  realities  come,  year  by 
year,  to  occupy  a  larger  and  larger  place  in  our  life,  so 
the  demand  for  more  and  better  training  in  science  will 
long  be  an  urgent  and  growing  one.  But  science  should 
hold  its  place  in  the  schools  by  virtue  of  its  power  as  an 
agent  in  mental  training,  not  because  of  the  special  use- 
fulness of  scientific  facts,  nor  because  knowledge  of 
things  has  a  higher  market  value  than  the  knowledge 
of  words. 

The  time  will  come  when  the  study  of  the  objects  and 
forces  of  nature  will  be  as  much  a  matter  of  course  in  all 
our  schools  as  the  study  of  numbers,  but  the  science- 
work  of  the  next  century  will  not  be  the  work  we  are 

•Address  before  the  Indiana  State  Teachers'  Association,  December  26, 
1889 ;  published  in  the  Popular  Science  Monthly,  April,  189a 

173 


174         SCIENCE    IN    THE    HIGH   SCHOOL. 

doing  now.  The  science  in  our  schools  is  too  often  a 
make-beheve,  and  the  schools  gain  with  every  make- 
believe  that  slips  out  of  the  curriculum.  Deeply  as  I 
am  interested  in  the  progress  of  science,  both  in  school 
and  out,  with  Professor  Huxley,  * '  I  would  not  turn  my 
hand  over ' '  to  have  biology  taught  in  every  school  in 
the  land,  if  the  subject  be  taught  through  books  only. 
To  pretend  to  do,  without  doing,  is  worse  than  not  to 
pretend.  The  conventional  '  *  fourteen  weeks ' '  in  science 
gives  no  contact  with  nature,  no  training  of  any  sort,  no 
information  worth  having;  only  a  distaste  for  that  class 
of  scattering  information  which  is  supposed  to  be  science. 

There  is  a  charm  in  real  knowledge  which  every  stu- 
dent feels.  The  magnet  attracts  iron,  to  be  sure,  to  the 
student  who  has  learned  the  fact  from  a  book;  but  the 
fact  is  real  only  to  the  student  who  has  himself  felt  it 
pull.  It  is  more  than  this  —  it  is  enchanting  to  the 
student  who  has  discovered  the  fact  for  himself.  To 
read  a  statement  of  the  fact  gives  knowledge,  more  or 
less  complete,  as  the  book  is  accurate  or  the  memory 
retentive.  To  verify  the  fact  gives  training;  to  discover 
it  gives  inspiration.  Training  and  inspiration,  not  the 
facts  themselves,  are  the  justification  of  science-teaching. 
Facts  enough  we  can  gather  later  in  life,  when  we  are 
too  old  to  be  trained  or  inspired.  He  whose  knowledge 
comes  from  authority,  or  is  derived  from  books  alone, 
has  no  notion  of  the  force  of  an  idea  brought  first-hand 
from  human  experience. 

What  is  true  of  one  science  is  true  of  all  in  greater  or 
less  degree.  I  may  take  the  science  of  zoology  for  my 
illustration,  simply  because  it  is  the  one  nearest  my 
hand.     In  very  few  of  our  high  schools  has  the  instruc- 


SMATTERING    AS    SCIENCE.  175 

tion  in  zoology  any  value.  For  this  unfortunate  fact 
there  are  several  causes,  and  some  of  these  are  beyond 
the  control  of  the  teachers.  In  the  first  place,  the  high- 
school  course  is  overloaded,  and  the  small  part  of  the 
course  given  to  the  sciences  is  divided  among  too  many 
of  them.  A  smattering  of  one  science  is  of  little  use, 
either  for  discipline  or  information.  A  smattering  of 
many  sciences  may  be  even  worse,  because  it  leads  the 
mind  to  be  content  with  smattering.  Indeed,  so  greatly 
have  our  schools  sinned  in  this  respect  that  many  writers 
on  education  seem  to  regard  science  as  synonymous  with 
smattering,  and  they  contrast  it  with  other  branches 
of  learning  which  are  supposed  to  have  some  standard 
of  thoroughness.  Most  of  our  colleges  have,  at  one 
time  or  other,  arranged  courses  of  study  not  approved 
by  the  faculty,  in  response  to  the  popular  demand  for 
many  studies  in  a  little  time.  Such  a  course  of  odds 
and  ends  is  always  called  "the  scientific  course,"  and 
it  leads  to  the  appropriate  degree  of  "B.  S.," — Bache- 
lor of  Surfaces. 

The  high  school  can  do  some  things  very  well,  but  it 
will  fail  if  it  try  to  do  too  much.  Unfortunately,  the 
present  tendency  in  our  high  schools  is  in  the  direction  of 
such  failure  —  to  do  many  things  poorly,  rather  than  a  few 
things  well.  In  other  words,  we  try  to  satisfy  the  public 
by  a  show  of  teaching  those  subjects  which  we  do  not 
really  teach.  In  the  sciences  we  study  books  instead 
of  nature,  because  books  are  plenty  and  cheap,  and  can 
be  finished  quickly,  while  Nature  herself  is  accessible 
only  to  those  who  want  something  of  her.  The  high 
school  would  do  well  not  to  attempt  to  give  a  general 
view  of  science.     It  is  better  to  select  some  two  or  three 


176         SCIENCE    IN    THE    HIGH   SCHOOL. 

of  the  number  —  a  physical  and  a  biological  science,  per- 
haps,—  and  to  spend  the  available  time  on  these.  The 
choice  should  depend  mainly  on  the  interest  or  the  skill 
of  the  teacher.  Teach  those  sciences  that  you  can  teach 
best. 

President  Hill,  of  Rochester,  has  well  said  :  "  Thou- 
sands of  our  youth  have  studied  chemistry  without  ever 
seeing  an  experiment,  physics  withoutseeing  an  air-pump, 
and  astronomy  without  ever  looking  through  a  telescope. 
A  professor  of  the  ancient  type  maintained  that  this  is  a 
great  advantage,  like  the  study  of  geometry  without 
figures,  because  it  stimulates  the  imagination.  It  is  an 
invigoration  of  stupidity  and  conceit,  sealing  the  mind  to 
reality  by  substituting  subjective  fancies  for  experimental 
proofs,  and  the  pretense  of  knowing  for  clear  ideas.  Its 
effect  upon  the  morals  is  as  pernicious  as  its  effect  upon 
the  mind;  for  it  weakens  the  reverence  for  truth  and 
engenders  the  habit  of  mental  trifling. ' ' 

One  of  our  wisest  writers  on  education  excludes  sci- 
ence-teaching (by  which  he  means  giving  information 
about  scientific  subjects)  from  the  fundamental  require- 
ments of  education,  because  the  knowledge  of  nature  is 
not  one  of  the  "five  windows  "  through  which  the  soul 
looks  out  on  life.  These  windows,  according  to  this 
author,  are  reading  and  writing,  grammar,  arithmetic, 
geography,  and  history.  The  simile  is  a  happy  one. 
The  soul,  confined  in  the  watch-tower  of  medieval  educa- 
tion, looks  out  on  the  world  through  these  five  windows 
—  and  they  are  but  windows,  for  they  give  no  contact 
with  the  things  themselves.  The  study  of  nature  throws 
wide  open  the  doors,  and  lets  the  soul  out  to  the  fields 
and  woods.     It  brings  that  contact  with  God  through 


GOOD    AND    BAD     TEACHERS.  177 

His  works  which  has  been,  tnrough  all  the  ages,  the 
inspiration  of  the  poets  and  the  prophets,  as  well  as  of 
those  long-despised  apostles  of  truth  whom  we  call  men 
of  science. 

A  second  difficulty  is  this :  Our  towns  will  not  pay  for 
teachers  enough  to  do  the  work  as  it  should  be  done,  and 
of  the  few  teachers  we  have  the  people  make  no  demand 
for  thorough  preparation.  Very  few  of  them  are  broadly 
educated  or  have  had  any  scientific  training  whatever. 
And  such  teachers  are  expected  to  teach  a  dozen  sub- 
jects each,  and  therefore  have  no  time  to  make  good 
their  defective  preparation.  Thus  good  teaching  of  sci- 
ence cannot  be  expected,  for  streams  do  not  rise  higher 
than  their  sources.  The  only  remedy  for  these  condi- 
tions seems  to  lie  in  the  gradual  education  of  the  people. 
A  series  of  object-lessons,  showing  the  difference  between 
a  good  teacher  and  a  poor  one,  is  the  most  effective 
means  of  causing  good  work  to  be  appreciated. 

But,  taking  things  as  they  are,  even  with  uneducated 
teachers  and  teachers  crowded  for  time,  fairly  good  work 
may  be  done  by  the  use  of  good  methods.  A  great  deal 
will  depend,  not  on  the  kind  of  books  you  use,  but  on 
the  kind  of  books  you  avoid.  Most  of  the  current  text- 
books of  elementary  zoology  are  simply  pernicious  so  far 
as  your  purposes  are  concerned.  Even  if  these  books  were 
well  digested  and  accurate  in  their  statements  of  fact, 
which  is  rarely  the  case,  they  are  based  on  incorrect  prin- 
ciples. They  are  not  elementary  but  fragmentary  in  their 
character.  It  is  a  great  mistake  to  suppose  that  because 
a  book  is  small  and  says  very  little  about  each  one  of  the 
animals  of  which  it  treats,  it  is  thereby  rendered  elemen- 
tary. Fragments  are  not  necessarily  elements.  A  frag- 
jr 


178  SCIENCE    IN    THE    HIGH   SCHOOL. 

ment  of  rock  is  as  hard  to  digest  as  a  bowlder.  Ele- 
mentary work  in  science  should  treat  of  but  few  things, 
but  the  impressions  it  leaves  with  the  child  should  be 
very  clear  ones.  The  ideas  derived  from  the  common 
text-books  are  of  the  vaguest  possible  character.  These 
books  are  the  parasites,  not  the  allies,  of  science.  They 
bear  the  same  relation  to  the  progress  of  science  that 
barnacles  bear  to  the  progress  of  a  ship.  If  you  keep 
clear  of  these,  you  cannot  go  far  astray.  Let  us  recall 
the  words  of  Agassiz  to  the  publisher  who  tried  to  induce 
him  to  write  a  school-book  on  zoology: 

"  I  told  him,"  he  said,  "  that  I  was  not  the  man  to  do 
that  sort  of  thing;  and  I  told  him,  too,  that  the  less  of 
that  sort  of  thing  which  is  done  the  better.  It  is  not 
school-books  we  want,  but  students.  The  book  of  na- 
ture is  always  open,  and  all  I  can  do  or  say  shall  be  to 
lead  students  to  study  that  book,  and  not  to  pin  their 
faith  to  any  other. ' '  And  at  another  time  he  said,  ' '  If 
we  study  Nature  in  books,  when  we  go  out  of  doors  we 
cannot  find  her." 

The  essential  of  method  is  that  we  allow  nothing  to 
come  between  the  student  and  the  object  which  he  stu- 
dies. The  book,  or  chart,  or  lecture  which  can  be  used 
in  place  of  the  real  thing  is  the  thing  you  should  never 
use.  Your  students  should  see  for  themselves,  and  draw 
their  own  conclusions  from  what  they  see.  When  they 
have  a  groundwork  of  their  own  observations,  other 
facts  can  be  made  known  to  them  as  a  basis  for  advanced 
generalizations,  for  the  right  use  of  books  is  as  impor- 
tant as  their  misuse  is  pernicious;  but  work  of  this  sort 
belongs  to  the  university  rather  than  to  the  high  school. 
You  do  not  wish  to  have  your  students  tell  you  from 


WHAT    THE    FROG     CAN    TELL     YOU.      I79 

memory  the  characters  of  the  Sauropsida  as  distinguished 
from  the  Ichthyopsida.  What  you  want  is  the  answer  to 
their  own  questionings  of  the  frog  and  the  turde. 

I  was  lately  present  at  a  high-school  examination  in 
zoology.  The  teacher  gave  a  number  of  the  stock  ques- 
tions, such  as  "Describe  the  Gasteropoda,"  "What 
are  the  chief  differences  between  the  domestic  turkey 
and  the  turkey  of  Honduras?"  "How  do  Asiatic  and 
African  elephants  differ?"  "On  which  foot  of  the 
ornithorhynchus  does  the  webbing  extend  past  the 
toes  ?  "  and  so  on.  At  last  he  said:  "  I  will  now  give 
you  a  practical  question:  A  few  days  ago  we  had  a  frog 
in  the  class,  and  all  of  you  saw  it;  now  write  out  all  the 
characteristics  of  the  sub-kingdom,  class,  and  order  to 
which  the  frog  belongs." 

This  is  all  useless.  The  definitions  of  these  classes 
and  orders  do  not  concern  the  child.  To  the  working 
naturalist,  these  names  are  as  essential  as  the  names  of 
the  stations  on  the  road  to  a  railway  engineer.  They 
belong  to  his  business,  but  the  names  and  distances  of 
railway  stations  do  not  form  part  of  any  good  work  in 
primary  geography.  You  do  not  need  to  teach  your 
students  that  vertebrates  are  divided  into  mammals, 
birds,  reptiles,  batrachians,  and  fishes.  It  is  not  true  in 
the  first  place,  and,  if  it  were,  it  is  not  relevant  to  them. 
Stick  to  your  frog,  if  you  are  studying  frogs,  and  he 
will  teach  you  more  of  the  science  of  animals  than  can 
be  learned  from  all  the  memorized  classifications  that 
you  can  bracket  out  on  a  hundred  rods  of  blackboard! 

The  prime  defect  in  our  schools  is  not,  after  all,  that 
the  teachers  do  not  know  the  subjects  they  teach,  but 
that  they  do  not  know  nor  care  for  the  purpose  of  their 


i8o         SCIENCE    IN    THE    HIGH   SCHOOL. 

teaching.  In  other  words,  they  do  not  know  how  to 
teach.  The  book  is  placed  in  their  hands  by  the  school 
board,  and  they  teach  by  the  book.  If  the  book  comes 
to  them  wrong-side  up,  their  teaching  is  forever  inverted. 
That  this  is  true,  the  statistics  gathered  recently  from  the 
high  schools  of  Indiana,  by  Dr.  Barton  W.  Evermann, 
very  clearly  show.  It  is  no  wonder  that  a  superintend- 
ent is  needed  for  every  dozen  teachers.  A  good  teacher 
should  know  the  end  for  which  he  works,  and  then  he 
can  adapt  his  means  to  fit  this  end. 

I  once  visited  a  large  high  school,  one  of  the  best  in 
the  country,  with  a  science-teacher  whose  studies  have 
won  him  the  respect  of  his  fellow-workers.  But  for  some 
reason,  on  that  day  at  least,  he  failed  to  bring  himself 
into  the  classroom.  I  heard  him  quizzing  a  class  of  boys 
and  girls  on  animals  —  not  on  the  animals  of  the  woods 
and  fields,  not  on  the  animals  before  them,  for  there 
were  none,  but  on  the  edentates  of  South  America.  An 
especial  point  was  to  find  out  whether  it  is  the  nine- 
banded  armadillo  (novemcinctus)  or  the  three-banded 
armadillo  (tricindus)  which  does  not  dig  a  hole  in  the 
ground  for  its  nest.  The  book,  written  by  a  man  who 
did  not  know  an  armadillo  from  a  mud-turtle,  gives  this 
piece  of  information.  It  was  in  the  lesson,  and  the  stu- 
dents must  get  it.  And  on  this  and  like  subjects  these 
boys  and  girls  were  wasting  their  precious  time  — 
precious,  because  if  they  do  not  learn  to  observe  in 
their  youth,  they  will  never  learn,  and  the  horizon  of 
their  lives  will  be  always  narrower  and  darker  than  it 
should  have  been.  Already  the  work  of  that  day  is  a 
blank.  They  have  forgotten  the  nine-banded  armadillo 
and  the  three-banded,  and  so  has  their  teacher,  and  so 


THE    METHODS    OF   NON-SCIENCE.         i8i 

have  I.  All  that  remains  with  them  is  a  mild  hatred  of 
the  armadillo  and  of  the  edentates  in  general,  and  a 
feeling  of  relief  at  being  no  longer  under  their  baleful 
influence.  But  with  this  usually  goes  the  determination 
never  to  study  zoology  again.  And  when  these  students 
later  come  to  the  college,  they  know  no  more  of  science 
and  its  methods  than  they  did  when  in  babyhood  they 
first  cried  for  the  moon. 

Darwin  tells  us  that  his  early  instruction  in  geology  was 
so  ' '  incredibly  dull ' '  that  he  came  to  the  determination, 
afterward  happily  changed,  ' '  never  so  long  as  he  lived 
to  read  a  book  on  geology  or  in  any  way  to  study  the 
subject. " 

I  once  had  a  student,  well  trained  in  the  conventional 
methods  of  non-science,  who  was  set  to  observe  the 
yeast-plant  under  the  microscope.  He  had  read  what 
the  books  say  about  yeast,  and  had  looked  at  the  pic- 
tures. So  he  went  to  work  vigorously.  In  a  short  time 
he  had  found  out  all  about  the  little  plant,  and  had  made 
a  series  of  drawings  which  showed  it  very  nicely.  By 
and  by  some  one  noticed  that  he  was  working  without 
any  object-glass  in  his  microscope.  He  had  not  seen  the 
yeast-plant  at  all,  only  the  dust  on  the  eye-piece.  This 
is  the  vital  fault  of  much  of  our  teaching  of  elementary 
science.  It  is  not  real;  it  is  not  the  study  of  nature,  only 
of  the  dust-heaps  of  old  definitions. 

Yet  nothing  is  easier  than  to  do  fairly  good  teaching, 
even  without  special  knowledge  or  special  appliances. 
Bring  out  your  specimens  and  set  them  before  the  boys 
and  girls.  They  will  do  the  work,  and  do  it  eagerly; 
and  they  will  furnish  the  specimens,  too.  There  is  no 
difficulty  about  materials.     Our  New  World  is  the  ' '  El 


i82         SCIENCE    IN    THE    HIGH   SCHOOL. 

Dorado"  of  the  naturalists  of  Europe.  You  can  get 
material  for  a  week's  work  by  turning  over  a  single 
rotten  log,  I  once  heard  Professor  Agassiz  say  to  an 
assembly  of  teachers,  and  I  quote  from  him  the  more 
freely  because  he  gave  his  life  to  the  task  of  the  introduc- 
tion of  right  methods  into  American  schools: 

' '  Select  such  subjects  that  your  students  can  not  walk 
out  without  seeing  them.  If  you  can  find  nothing  better, 
take  a  house-fly  or  a  cricket,  and  let  each  one  hold  a 
specimen  while  you  speak.  .  .  .  There  is  no  part 
of  the  country  where,  in  the  summer,  you  cannot  get  a 
sufficient  supply  of  the  best  of  specimens.  Teach  your 
pupils  to  bring  them  in.  Take  your  text  from  the  brooks 
and  no,t  from  the  booksellers.  .  .  .  It  is  better  to 
have  a  few  forms  well  studied  than  to  teach  a  little  about 
many  hundred  species.  Better  a  dozen  forms  thoroughly 
known  as  the  result  of  the  first  year's  work,  than  to  have 
two  thousand  dollars'  worth  of  shells  and  corals  bought 
from  a  curiosity-store.  The  dozen  animals  will  be  your 
own,  .  .  .  You  will  find  the  same  elements  of 
instruction  all  about  you  wherever  you  are  teaching.  You 
can  take  your  classes  out  and  give  them  the  same  lessons, 
and  lead  them  up  to  the  same  subjects  in  one  place  as 
another.  And  this  method  of  teaching  children  is  so 
natural,  so  suggestive,  so  true.  That  is  the  charm  of 
teaching  from  Nature.  No  one  can  warp  her  to  suit  his 
own  views.  She  brings  us  back  to  absolute  truth  so 
often  as  we  wander." 


XII. 
SCIENCE  AND  THE  COLLEGES.* 

WE  have  come  together  to-day  to  do  our  part  in 
raising  one  of  the  milestones  which  mark  the  pro- 
gress of  education  in  America.  Our  interest  in  higher 
education  and  our  interest  in  science  bring  us  here. 
More  than  ever  before  in  the  history  of  humanity  we  find 
these  interests  closely  associated.  More  and  more  each 
year  the  higher  education  of  America  is  taking  the  char- 
acter of  science  ;  and  in  the  extension  of  human  knowl- 
edge, the  American  university  now  finds  its  best  excuse 
for  being. 

I  hope  that  in  what  I  shall  have  to  say  I  shall  not  be 
accused  of  undue  glorification  of  science.  I  recognize 
in  the  fullest  degree  the  value  of  all  agencies  in  the  de- 
velopment of  the  human  mind.  But  the  other  depart- 
ments of  learning  may  each  have  its  turn.  We  are  here 
to-day  to  dedicate  a  hall  of  science.  We  are  here  in 
the  interest  of  science-teaching  and  scientific  research. 
When,  in  a  few  years  to  come,  we  may  dedicate  a  hall 
of  letters,  we  shall  sing  the  praises  of  poetry  and  litera- 
ture. But  to-day  we  speak  of  science,  in  the  full  cer- 
tainty that  the  humanities  will  not  suffer  with  its  growth. 
All  real  knowledge  is  a  help  to  all  other,  and  all  real 
love  of  beauty  must  rest  on  love  of  truth. 

At  this  time,  as  we  stand  together,  by  the  side  of  the 

•Address  at  the  dedication  of  the  Science  Hall  of  the  University  of  Illi- 
noisi  November  i6, 1892;  from  the  Popnlar  Science  Monthly  for  April,  1393. 

188 


i84  SCIENCE    AND     THE    COLLEGES. 

milestone  we  have  set  up,  on  the  breezy  upland  which 
marks  the  boundary  of  our  nineteenth  century,  it  is 
worth  while  for  a  moment  to  glance  back  over  the  de- 
pressing lowlands  from  which  we  have  risen.  And  in 
our  discussion  of  the  relations  of  the  American  college 
to  science,  we  find  depression  and  darkness  enough  with- 
out going  back  very  far. 

I  am  still  numbered,  I  trust,  with  the  young  men.  I 
am  sure  that  I  have  never  yet  heard  the  word  "old" 
seriously  joined  to  my  name.  When  men  speak  of  ' '  Old 
Jordan,"  I  know  that  they  mean  the  river  of  Palestine, 
and  not  me.  Yet,  in  the  few  years  during  which  I  have 
taught  zoology,  the  relation  of  science  to  education  has 
undergone  most  remarkable  changes. 

I  remember  very  clearly  that  twenty  years  ago,  when, 
in  such  way  as  I  could,  I  had  prepared  myself  for  the 
two  professions  of  naturalist  and  college  professor,  I  found 
that  these  professions  were  in  no  way  related.  I  remem- 
ber having  in  1872  put  the  results  of  my  observations 
into  these  words  :  ' '  The  colleges  have  no  part  or  interest 
in  the  progress  of  science,  and  science  has  no  interest 
in  the  growth  of  the  colleges." 

The  college  course  in  those  days  led  into  no  free  air. 
A  priori  and  ex  cathedra,  two  of  its  favorite  phrases, 
described  it  exactly.  Its  essentials  were  the  grammar 
of  dead  languages,  and  the  memorized  results  of  the 
applications  of  logic  to  number  and  space.  Grammar 
and  logic  were  taught  in  a  perfunctory  way,  and  the 
student  exhausted  every  device  known  to  restless  boys  in 
his  desire  to  evade  the  instruction  he  had  spent  his  time 
and  money  to  obtain.  Then,  when  all  the  drill  was  over, 
and  the  long  struggle  between  perfunctory  teachers  and 


HOW  SCIENCE  INVADED  THE  COLLEGE.    185 

unwilling  boys  had  dragged  to  an  end,  the  students  were 
passed  on  to  the  president,  to  receive  from  him  an  expo- 
sition of  philosophy.  This  was  the  outlook  on  life  for 
which  three  years  of  drill  made  preparation.  And  this 
philosophy  was  never  the  outgrowth  of  the  knowledge 
of  the  day,  but  simply  the  dibris  of  outworn  speculations 
of  the  middle  ages.  It  bore  no  relations  to  modem  life  or 
modern  thought.  It  was  therefore  peculiarly  safe  and 
tranquilizing. 

Let  us  recall  the  first  invasion  of  science  in  the  conven- 
tional programmes  of  study.  It  came  in  response  to  an 
outside  demand  for  subjects  interesting  and  practical.  It 
was  met  in  such  a  way  as  to  silence,  rather  than  to  sat- 
isfy, the  demand.  A  few  trifling  courses,  memorized 
from  antiquated  text-books,  and  the  work  in  science  was 
finished.  The  teachers  who  were  capable  of  higher 
things  had  no  opportunity  to  make  use  of  their  powers. 
Their  investigations  were  not  part  of  their  duties.  They 
were  carried  on  in  time  stolen  fi-om  their  tasks  of  plod- 
ding and  prodding.  It  is  to  the  shame  of  the  State  of 
Indiana  that  she  kept  one  of  the  greatest  astronomers 
of  our  time  for  forty  years  teaching  boys  the  elements  of 
geometry  and  algebra.  That  he  should  have  taught 
astronomy,  and  made  astronomers,  occurred  to  no  one 
in  authority  until  Daniel  Kirkwood  was  seventy  years 
old,  and  by  the  laws  of  nature  could  teach  no  longer. 
What  was  true  in  this  case  was  true  in  scores  of  others. 
The  investigator  had  no  part  in  the  college  system,  or  if 
on  sufferance  he  found  a  place,  his  time  was  devoted  to 
anything  else  rather  than  to  the  promotion  of  science. 
Everywhere  in  Europe  and  America  were  men  who  were 
devoting  their  lives  eagerly  to  scientific  research;  but,  in 


i86  SCIENCE    AND     THE    COLLEGES. 

nine  cases  out  of  ten,  these  men  were  outside  of  the  col- 
leges. Even  with  the  others,  very  few  had  any  opportu- 
nity to  teach  those  subjects  in  which  the  interest  was 
deepest. 

The  American  college  of  the  middle  of  this  century, 
like  its  English  original,  existed  for  the  work  of  the 
church.  ' '  If  the  college  dies  the  church  dies, ' '  was  the 
basis  of  its  appeal  for  money  and  influence.  Its  duty  was 
to  form  a  class  of  educated  men  in  whose  hands  should 
lie  the  preservation  of  the  creed.  In  the  mouths  of  igno- 
rant men  the  truths  of  the  church  would  be  clouded. 
Each  wise  church  would  see  that  its  wisdom  be  not 
marred  by  human  folly.  The  needs  of  one  church 
indicated  the  needs  of  others.  So  it  came  about  that 
each  of  the  many  organizations  called  churches  in  Amer- 
ica established  its  colleges  here  and  there  about  the  coun- 
try, all  based  on  the  same  general  plan. 

And,  as  the  little  towns  on  the  rivers  and  prairies  grew 
with  the  progress  of  the  country  into  large  cities,  so  it 
was  thought,  by  some  mysterious  virtue  of  inward  expan- 
sion, these  little  schools  in  time  would  grow  to  be  great 
universities.  And  in  this  optimistic  spirit  the  future  was 
forestalled,  and  the  schools  were  called  universities  from 
the  beginning.  As  time  went  on,  it  appeared  that  a  uni- 
versity could  not  be  made  without  money,  and  the  source 
of  money  must  be  outside  the  schools.  And  so  has 
ensued  a  long  struggle  between  the  American  college 
and  the  wolf  at  the  door  —  a  tedious,  belittling  conflict, 
which  has  done  much  to  lower  the  name  and  dignity  of 
higher  education.  To  this  educational  planting  without 
watering,  repeated  again  and  again,  East  and  West, 
North  and  South,  must  be  ascribed  the  unnaturally  severe 


''THE    FRESH-WATER    COLLEGER         187 

struggle  for  existence  through  which  our  colleges  have 
been  forced  to  pass,  the  poor  work,  low  salaries,  and 
humiliating  economies  of  the  American  college  professor, 
the  natural  end  of  whom,  according  to  Dr.  Holmes,  is 
•'  starvation." 

The  intense  rivalry  among  these  schools,  like  rivalry 
among  half-starving  tradesmen,  has  done  much  to  beHttle 
the  cause  in  which  all  are  engaged.  At  the  same  time, 
their  combined  rivalry  has  too  often  prevented  the  growth 
within  their  neighborhood  of  any  better  school. 

In  this  connection,  you  may  pardon  me  for  a  word  of 
my  own  experience,  when  twenty  years  ago  (1872)  I  set 
out  in  search  of  a  place  for  work.  A  chair  of  natural  his- 
tory was  the  height  of  my  aspirations;  for  anything  more 
specialized  than  this  it  seemed  useless  to  hope.  I  was  early 
called  from  New  York  to  such  a  chair,  in  a  well-known 
college  of  Illinois.  But  in  those  days,  the  work  attached 
to  a  college  chair  was  never  limited  by  its  title.  As  pro- 
fessor of  natural  history,  I  taught  zoology,  botany,  geol- 
ogy, physiology  —  a  litde  of  each,  and  to  litde  purpose. 
Then  physics,  chemistry,  mineralogy,  natural  theology, 
and  political  economy,  also,  as  a  matter  of  course.  With 
these  went  German,  Spanish,  and  evidences  of  Christi- 
anity, because  there  was  no  one  else  to  take  them. 
There  finally  fell  on  me  the  literary  work  of  the  college  — 
the  orations,  essays,  declamations,  and  all  that  flavorless 
foolishness  on  which  the  college  depended  for  a  creditable 
display  at  commencement.  When  to  this  was  added  a 
class  in  the  Sunday-school,  you  will  see  why  it  seemed 
necessary  that  the  naturalist  and  the  professor  must 
sooner  or  later  part  company.  I  tried  at  one  time  to 
establish  a  little  laboratory  in  chemistry,  but  met  with  a 


l88  SCIENCE    AND     THE    COLLEGES. 

sharp  rebuke  from  the  board  of  trustees,  who  directed 
me  to  keep  the  students  out  of  what  was  called  the  ' '  cab- 
inet," for  they  were  likely  to  injure  the  apparatus  and 
waste  the  chemicals. 

When  I  left  this  college  and  looked  elsewhere  for  work, 
I  found  on  all  sides  difficulty  and  disappointment;  for  the 
reputation  I  had,  wholly  undeserved,  I  am  sorry  to  say, 
was  the  dreaded  reputation  of  a  specialist. 

The  question  of  conventional  orthodoxy  seemed  every- 
where to  be  made  one  of  primary  importance,  and  candi- 
dates for  chairs  who,  like  myself,  were  not  heretics  on 
the  subject  of  the  origin  of  species,  passed  the  rock  of 
evolution,  only  to  be  stranded  on  the  inner  shoals  of  the 
mysteries  of  the  Scottish  philosophy. 

But  these  were  not  the  only  sources  of  difficulty.  In 
one  institution  toward  which  I  had  looked,  the  chair  of 
natural  history  was  found  unnecessary.  In  the  meeting 
of  the  board  of  trustees,  a  member  arose  and  said,  in  sub- 
stance: "We  have  just  elected  a  professor  of  history. 
This  includes  all  history,  and  the  work  in  natural  history 
is  a  part  of  it.  Let  the  professor  in  history  take  this 
too."  And  for  that  year,  at  least,  the  professor  of  his- 
tory took  it  all,  and  it  was  not  hard  for  him  to  do  this, 
because  the  work  in  history  was  the  cutting  of  straw. 
He  read  a  chapter  in  a  text-book  in  advance  of  the  stu- 
dents. This  was  no  heavy  drain  on  either  his  time  or  his 
intellect.  Even  in  the  excellent  State  university  into 
which  I  ultimately  drifted,  I  was  met  at  the  beginning  by 
the  caution  that  the  purpose  of  my  work  must  be  ele- 
mentary teaching,  the  statement  of  the  essential  facts  of 
science,  and  by  no  means  the  making  of  naturalists  or 
of  specialists. 


AGASSIZ    AS    A     UNIVERSITY.  189 

I  could  give  more  illustrations,  and  from  better  institu- 
tions, showing  that  the  demand  of  the  colleges  of  twenty 
years  ago  was  a  demand  for  docility  and  versatility, 
rather  than  for  thoroughness  or  originality;  that,  as  a 
rule,  the  progress  of  science  in  America  came  from  men 
outside  of  the  college,  and  in  a  great  part  outside  of  col- 
lege training  and  college  sympathies;  that  to  promote 
science  or  to  extend  knowledge  was  not  often  one  of  the 
college  ideals;  and  that  the  college's  chief  function  was  to 
keep  old  ideas  unchanged.  What  was  safe  in  times  of  old 
will  be  safe  to-day,  and  safety,  rather  than  inspiration  or 
investigation,  was  the  purpose  of  the  college.  From  time 
immemorial  until  now,  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  the 
schools  of  clergymen  and  gentlemen,  have  been  the  cen- 
ter of  English  conservatism.  The  American  colleges  — 
dilute  copies  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge — came  nearest 
their  models  in  their  retention  of  old  methods  and  old 
ideas.  The  motto,  once  suggested  for  a  scientific 
museum,  "We  will  keep  what  we  have  got,"  might 
have  been  taken  by  the  American  college.  There  was 
no  American  university  then,  unless  a  few  broad-minded 
teachers — mostly  in  Harvard,  Yale,  Princeton,  and  Mich- 
igan—  could,  as  so  many  individuals,  be  properly 
regarded  as  such. 

The  coming  of  Agassiz  to  America  may  be  said  to 
mark  the  foundation  of  the  first  American  university. 
Agassiz  was  the  university.  The  essential  character  of 
the  university  is  Lemfreiheit,  freedom  of  learning,  the 
freedom  of  the  student  to  pursue  his  studies  to  the  limit 
of  the  known,  the  freedom  of  encouragement  to  invade 
the  realm  of  the  unknown.  It  is  from  this  realm  that 
come  the  chief  rewards  of  the  scholar.     The  school  from 


I90  SCIENCE    AND    THE    COLLEGES. 

which  no  exploring  parties  set  out  has  no  right  to  the 
name  of  university.  In  the  progress  of  science,  and  the 
application  of  its  methods  to  subjects  not  formerly  con- 
sidered scientific,  the  German  university  has  its  growth 
and  development.  In  like  progress  must  arise  the  Amer- 
ican university. 

You  remember  the  story  of  the  discussion,  some  forty 
years  ago,  between  Emerson  and  Agassiz,  as  to  the 
future  of  Harvard.  Emerson,  himself  one  of  the  sanest 
and  broadest  of  men,  saw  in  the  work  of  Agassiz  ele- 
ments of  danger,  whereby  the  time-honored  symmetry 
of  Harvard  might  be  destroyed.  In  a  lecture  on  univer- 
sities, in  Boston,  Emerson  made  some  such  statement  as 
this:  That  natural  history  was  "getting  too  great  an 
ascendency  at  Harvard  " ;  that  it  "  was  out  of  proportion 
to  other  departments,  '  and  hinted '  that  a  check-rein 
would  not  be  amiss  on  the  enthusiastic  young  professor 
who  is  responsible  for  this." 

"  Do  you  not  see,"  Agassiz  wrote  to  Emerson,  "that 
the  way  to  bring  about  a  well-proportioned  development 
of  all  the  resources  of  the  university  is  not  to  check  the 
natural  history  department,  but  to  stimulate  all  the 
others  ?  Not  that  the  zoological  school  grows  too  fast, 
but  that  the  others  do  not  grow  fast  enough?  This 
sounds  invidious  and  perhaps  somewhat  boastful;  but  it 
is  you,"  he  said,  "and  not  I,  who  have  instituted  the 
comparison.  It  strikes  me  that  you  have  not  hit  upon 
the  best  remedy  for  this  want  of  balance.  If  symmetry 
is  to  be  obtained  by  cutting  down  the  most  vigorous 
growth,  it  seems  to  me  it  would  be  better  to  have  a 
little  irregularity  here  and  there.  In  stimulating,  by 
every  means  in  my  power,  the  growth  of  the  museum 


MODERN    UNIVERSITY   PROGRESS.         191 

and  the  means  of  education  connected  with  it,  I  am  far 
from  having  a  selfish  wish  to  see  my  own  department 
tower  above  the  others.  I  wish  that  every  one  of  my 
colleagues  would  make  it  hard  for  me  to  keep  up  with 
him;  and  there  are  some  among  them,  I  am  happy  to 
say,  who  are  ready  to  run  a  race  with  me. ' ' 

In  these  words  of  Agassiz  may  be  seen  the  key-note 
of  modem  university  progress.  The  university  should 
be  the  great  refuge-hut  on  the  ultimate  boundaries  of 
knowledge,  from  which,  daily  and  weekly,  adventurous 
bands  set  out  on  voyages  of  discovery.  It  should  be 
the  Upemavik  from  which  Polar  travelers  draw  their 
supplies,  and  as  the  shoreless  sea  of  the  unknown  meets 
us  on  every  side,  the  same  house  of  refuge  and  supply 
will  serve  for  a  thousand  different  exploring  parties, 
moving  out  in  every  direction  into  the  infinite  ocean. 
This  is  the  university  ideal  of  the  future.  Some  day  it 
will  be  felt  as  a  loss  and  a  crime  if  any  one  who  could  be 
an  explorer  is  forced  to  become  anything  else.  And 
even  then,  after  countless  ages  of  education  and  scien- 
tific progress,  the  true  university  will  still  stand  on  the 
boundaries,  it  walls  still  washed  by  the  same  unending 
sea,  the  boundless  ocean  of  possible  human  knowledge. 

The  new  growth  of  the  American  university  which  we 
honor  to-day  is  simply  its  extension  and  its  freedom, 
so  that  a  scholar  can  find  place  within  its  walls.  The 
scholar  cannot  breathe  in  confined  air.  The  walls  of 
medievalism  have  been  taken  down.  The  winds  of  free- 
dom are  blowing,  and  the  summer  sunshine  of  to-day 
quickens  the  pulse  of  the  scholar  in  the  deepest  clois- 
ter. In  the  university  of  the  future,  all  departments  of 
human  knowledge,  all  laws  of  the  omnipresent  God  will 


192  SCIENCE    AND    THE    COLLEGES. 

be  equally  cherished  because  equally  sacred.  The  place 
of  science  in  education  will  then  be  the  place  it  deserves 
—  nothing  more,  nothing  less. 

Many  influences  have  combined  to  bring  about  the 
emancipation  of  the  American  college.  Not  the  least 
of  these  is  the  growth  of  the  State  university  as  an  insti- 
tution, existing  for  all  the  people,  and  for  no  end  except 
the  purpose  of  popular  instruction.  It  is  a  part  of  the 
great  training-school  in  civics,  morals,  and  economics 
which  we  call  universal  suffrage. 

Most  of  these  schools  have  celebrated  their  coming  of 
age  within  the  last  five  years,  and  their  growth  is  cer- 
tainly one  of  the  most  notable  features  in  the  intellectual 
development  of  America.  The  State  university  was 
founded  as  a  logical  result  of  the  American  system  of 
education.  It  was  part  of  the  graded  system  through 
which  the  student  was  to  rise,  step  by  step,  from  the 
township  school  to  the  State  university.  It  has  grown 
because  it  deserved  to  grow.  When  it  has  deserved 
nothing,  it  has  received  nothing.  In  the  persistence  of 
old  methods  and  low  ideals  we  find  the  reason  for 
the  slow  growth  of  some  of  the  State  universities.  In 
the  early  dropping  of  shackles  and  the  loyalty  to  its 
own  freedom  we  find  the  cause  of  the  rapid  growth  of 
others. 

In  its  early  years  the  State  university  was  in  aim  and 
method  almost  a  duplicate  of  the  denominational  schools 
by  which  it  was  surrounded.  Its  traditions  were  the 
same,  its  professors  drawn  from  the  same  source;  its 
presidents  were  often  the  defeated  candidates  for  presi- 
dencies of  the  denominational  schools.  Men  not  popular 
enough  for  church  preferment  would  do  for  the  headship 


DIVISION  OF  EDUCATIONAL    SPOILS.       193 

of  the  State  universities.  The  salaries  paid  were  very 
small,  the  patronage  was  local,  and  the  professors  were 
often  chosen  at  the  dictates  of  some  local  leader,  or  to 
meet  some  real  or  supposed  local  demand.  I  can  remem- 
ber one  case  when  the  country  was  searched  to  find  for  a 
State  university  a  professor  of  history  who  should  be  a 
Democrat  and  a  Methodist.  All  questions  of  fitness 
were  subordinated  to  this  one  of  restoring  the  lost  sym- 
metry of  a  school  in  which  Presbyterians,  Baptists,  and 
Republicans  had  more  than  their  share  of  the  spoils. 
This  idea  of  division  of  spoils  in  schools,  as  in  politics,  is 
only  a  shade  less  baleful  than  the  still  older  one  of  taking 
all  spoils  without  division.  And  when  the  spoils  system 
was  finally  ignored,  and  in  the  State  universities  men 
were  chosen  with  reference  to  their  character,  scholar- 
ship, and  ability  to  teach,  regardless  of  ' '  other  marks  or 
brands"  upon  them,  the  position  of  professor  was  made 
dignified  and  worthy. 

The  first  important  step  in  the  advance  of  the  State 
universities  came  through  the  growth  of  individualism  in 
education  —  that  is,  through  the  advent  of  the  elective 
system, —  and  its  first  phase  was  the  permission  to  substi- 
tute advanced  work  in  science  for  elementary  work  in 
something  else.  It  does  not  matter  from  what  source  the 
idea  of  individual  choice  in  education  has  arisen.  It  may 
be  a  gift  from  far-seeing  Harvard  to  her  younger  sisters; 
or  it  may  be  that  in  Harvard,  as  elsewhere,  the  elective 
system  has  arisen  from  a  study  of  the  actual  conditions. 
The  educational  ideas  which  are  now  held  by  the  major- 
ity of  teachers  in  our  larger  schools  were  long  ago  the 
views  of  the  overruled  minority;  and  for  fifty  years  or 
more  individuals  in  the  minority  have  looked  forward  to 


194  SCIENCE    AND     THE    COLLEGES. 

the  time  when  inspiration,  and  not  drill,  would  be  the  aim 
of  the  colleges. 

Agassiz  said,  in  1864,  in  advocating  the  elective  sys- 
tem, that  although  it  might  possibly  give  the  pretext  for 
easy  evasion  of  duty  to  some  inefficient  or  lazy  students, 
it  gave  larger  opportunities  to  the  better  class,  and  the 
university  should  adapt  itself  to  the  latter,  rather  than 
to  the  former.  "The  bright  students,"  he  said,  "are 
now  deprived  of  the  best  advantages  to  be  had,  because 
the  dull  or  the  indifferent  must  be  treated  like  children." 

In  the  same  year,  Emerson  spoke  of  the  old  grudge  he 
had  for  forty-five  years  owed  Harvard  College,  for  the 
cruel  waste  of  two  years  of  college  time  on  mathematics, 
without  any  attempt  to  adapt  the  tasks  to  the  capacity  of 
learners.  "I  still  remember,"  he  said,  "  the  useless 
pains  I  took,  and  my  serious  recourse  to  my  tutor  for 
aid  he  did  not  know  how  to  give  me.  And  now  I  see 
to-day  the  same  indiscriminate  imposing  of  mathematics 
on  all  students  during  two  years.  Ear,  or  no  ear,  you 
shall  all  learn  music,  to  the  waste  of  the  time  and  health 
of  a  large  part  of  the  class." 

I  remember  well  the  beginning  of  the  modern  system 
in  the  university  of  a  neighboring  State.  It  came  as  the 
permission,  carefully  guarded,  to  certain  students,  who 
had  creditably  passed  the  examination  of  the  Freshman 
year  in  Latin,'  to  take,  instead  of  the  Sophomore  Latin, 
some  advanced  work  in  zoology.  To  the  very  great 
surprise  of  the  professor  of  Latin,  those  who  availed  them- 
selves of  this  opportunity  "to  take  something  easy" 
were  not  the  worst  students  in  Latin,  but  the  best. 
Those  who  were  attracted  by  investigation  chose  the 
new  road;  the  plodders  and  shirks  were  contented  with 


GROWTH    OF   SCIENCE    COURSES.  195 

the  evils  they  had,  rather  than  to  fly  to  others  that  they 
knew  not  of.  And  so,  httle  by  little,  in  that  institu- 
tion, and  in  all  the  others,  has  come  about  a  relaxation 
of  the  chains  of  the  curriculum  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge, 
and  the  extension  of  opportunities  for  students  to  find  out 
the  facts  of  nature  for  themselves,  rather  than  to  rest 
with  the  conserved  wisdom  of  an  incurious  past. 

Thus  slowly  and  painfully  came  about  the  development 
of  the  scientific  courses.  We  can  all  remember  the 
dreary  time  when  in  the  tedious  faculty  meetings  we 
used  to  devise  scientific  courses,  short  in  time  and  weak 
in  quality,  for  students  who  could  not,  or  would  not, 
learn  Latin  and  Greek.  There  was  no  scientific  prepara- 
tion or  achievement  required  in  these  courses.  They  were 
scientific  only  in  the  sense  that  they  were  not  anything 
else.  Their  degree  of  Bachelor  of  Science  was  regarded, 
and  rightly,  as  far  inferior  to  the  time-honored  B.  A.  In 
the  inner  circle  of  education  it  was  regarded  as  no  degree 
at  all,  and  its  existence  was  a  concession  to  the  utilitarian 
spirit  of  a  non-scholastic  age.  The  scientific  course  was, 
indeed,  inferior;  for  it  lacked  substance.  There  was  no 
lime  in  its  vertebrae.  The  central  axis  of  Greek  had 
been  taken  out,  and  no  corresponding  piece  of  solid 
work  put  in  its  place.  Gradually,  however,  even  this 
despised  degree  has  risen  to  a  place  with  the  others. 
Slowly  and  grudgingly  the  colleges  have  admitted  that 
under  some  circumstances  the  study  of  science  might  be 
as  worthy  of  recognition  as  the  study  of  Greek.  When 
science  was  worthily  studied,  this  proposition  became 
easy  of  acceptance.  In  our  best  colleges  to-day  the  study 
of  science  stands  side  by  side  with  the  study  of  language, 
and  the  one  counts  equally  with  the  other,  even  for  the 


196  SCIENCE    AND    THE    COLLEGES. 

degree  of  Bachelor  of  Arts.  For  not  the  Greek  itself, 
but  the  culture  it  implies,  was  the  glory  of  the  course  of 
arts.  When  equal  culture  and  equal  work  come  through 
other  channels,  they  are  worthy  of  this  degree.  To  deny 
this,  would  be  to  make  of  the  degree  itself  a  mere  child's 
toy,  a  play  on  words.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  can  be 
little  more,  and  sooner  or  later  the  college  will  have  no 
need  for  degrees.  Science  has  shown  herself  a  worthy 
suitor  of  the  highest  degree  the  university  can  give.  She 
will  show  herself  strong  enough  to  care  for  no  degrees  at 
all.  In  the  great  schools  of  the  future,  each  study  shall 
become  its  own  reward.  Let  all  come  who  will,  and  let 
each  take  what  he  can,  and  let  the  ideals  be  so  high  that 
no  one  will  imagine  that  he  is  getting  when  he  is  not. 

Not  the  least  of  the  aids  to  freedom  in  science  was  the 
Morrill  Act,  under  which  a  certain  part  of  the  public 
lands  was  given  for  the  foundation  of  schools  of  applied 
science.  Unhappily,  much  of  this  fund  was  wasted  out- 
right by  thriftless  management.  Much  more  was  in  some 
States  half- wasted  by  the  formation  of  separate  schools  for 
applied  science,  where  Slate  colleges  of  the  old  type  already 
existed.  Indeed,  in  many  States,  the  college  and  the 
technical  school  were  so  far  separated,  that  the  legislators 
of  1868  saw  in  them  nothing  in  common.  Nevertheless, 
the  highest  wisdom  in  education  is  to  bring  the  various 
influences  together  wherever  it  is  possible.  There  is  no 
knowledge  which  is  not  science,  and  there  can  be  no 
applied  science  without  the  basis  of  pure  science  on  which 
to  rest  Schools  of  applied  knowledge  cannot  be  legiti- 
mately separated  from  schools  of  knowledge.  But 
whatever  the  use  made  of  the  money,  the  passage  of  the 
Morrill  Act  in  the  interest  of  applied  science  has  given 


THE    ONE    UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS.      197 

scientific  work  a  prominence  in  our  colleges  it  did  not 
have  before.  It  has  given  science  definite  rights  in  the 
curriculum  where  before  it  seemed  to  exist  by  sufferance. 

I  congratulate  the  State  of  Illinois  that  its  university 
is  one  university;  that  its  pure  and  applied  science,  its 
literature,  history,  philosophy,  and  art  are  taught  in  one 
institution,  by  one  united  faculty.  The  best  results  in 
any  line  of  education  caimot  be  reached  without  the 
association  of  all  others.  The  training  of  the  engineer 
will  be  the  more  valuable  from  his  association  with  the 
classical  student.  The  literary  man  may  gain  much,  and 
will  lose  nothing,  fi-om  his  acquaintance  with  the  practical 
work  of  the  engineer.  The  separation  of  the  schools 
founded  by  the  Morrill  Act  from  the  State  imiversity,  as 
we  have  seen  in  nearly  half  the  States  of  the  Union,  was 
a  blunder  which  time  will  deepen  into  a  crime.  With  the 
union  of  the  two  has  come  the  rapid  growth  of  the  uni- 
versities of  Wisconsin,  California,  IlUnois,  Minnesota,  and 
Nebraska,  when  the  higher  work  of  the  State  is  all  con- 
centrated in  one  place. 

The  freedom  of  choice  has  not  worked  to  the  advan- 
tage of  science  alone.  The  element  of  consent  in  college 
study  has  brought  about  a  revival  in  classical  education 
as  well  as  in  science.  It  is  not  certain  even  that  more 
science  studies  are  chosen  by  students,  under  the  elective 
system  than  were  taken  on  the  old  plan  of  a  required  cur- 
riculum. But  the  work  is  done  in  a  different  spirit.  The 
colleges  and  the  investigators  are  being  drawn  together. 
There  is  no  line  of  investigation  in  which  the  college 
cannot  help,  if  the  investigators  have  freedom  to  use  it 
The  scientific  men  are  being  drawn  into  sympathy  with 
higher  education.     Men  are  now  in  college  who  under 


198  SCIENCE    AND     THE    COLLEGES. 

the  former  system  would  have  been  self-made  men,  with 
all  the  disadvantages  that  isolation  implies.  Education 
gives  the  ability  to  enter  into  the  labors  of  others;  and 
the  scientific  man  of  to-day  must  use  every  advantage,  if 
he  is  to  make  his  own  work  an  advance  in  knowledge. 
He  must  know  what  has  been  done  by  those  who  have 
gone  before  him.  He  must  use  their  highest  achieve- 
ments as  a  basis  for  further  progress.  Science  cannot  let 
go  of  its  past.  And  to  the  self-made  man  of  science, 
struggle  as  he  may,  the  books  of  the  past  are  at  least 
partially  closed. 

Twenty- five  years  ago  the  college  repelled  rather 
than  aided  men  of  science.  After  a  brief  experience 
in  college,  many  men  of  scientific  interests  went  away 
and  carried  on  their  own  studies  in  their  own  fashion. 
And  others  similarly  situated,  with  aspirations  in  liter- 
ature, history,  or  engineering,  stayed  away,  and  grew 
up  untouched  by  the  higher  education  of  their  times. 
The  elective  system  provides  for  such  as  these.  It  not 
only  gives  a  new  impulse  to  the  students'  work,  but  it 
brings  a  new  body  of  students  under  collegiate  influences. 

Nothing  in  our  educational  history  has  been  more 
remarkable  than  the  increase  in  numbers  of  students  in 
our  principal  colleges,  and  the  corresponding  increase  in 
influence  of  these  schools,  within  the  last  ten  years.  Yet 
nothing  is  more  evident  than  the  fact  that  these  students 
are  not  going  to  college  in  the  old-fashioned  sense.  The 
old-fashioned  college  ideals  are  not  rising  in  value;  but 
new  possibilities  of  training  and  the  inspiration  of  mod- 
em thought  bring  to  the  university  all  sorts  and  condi- 
tions of  men  and  women  whose  predecessors  twenty 
years  ago  would  not  have  thought  of  entering  an  Ameri- 


THE    COLLEGE  MEN  OF    THE  FUTURE.    199 

can  college.  Where  old  educational  ideas  still  reign,  be 
the  college  rich  or  poor,  there  is  no  increase  in  numbers 
nor  in  influence.  Unless  a  college  education  involves 
the  emancipation  of  thought,  unless  it  gives  something 
to  think  about,  it  has  no  place  in  the  educational  system 
of  the  future.  The  future  of  our  country  will  rest  with 
college  men,  because  the  college  of  the  future  will  meet 
the  needs  of  all  men  of  power,  and  draw  them  to  its  walls. 

Scientific  men  have  no  wish  to  underestimate  literary 
or  classical  training.  The  revolution  in  our  higher  edu- 
cation is  not  a  revolt  against  the  classics.  It  is  an  appeal 
from  the  assumption  that  the  classics  furnish  the  only 
gate  to  culture.  It  asserts  the  existence  of  a  thousand 
gates — as  many  ways  to  culture  as  there  are  types  of  men. 
Scientific  training  asks  only  for  freedom  of  development, 
and  for  the  right  to  be  judged  by  its  own  fruits. 

With  the  growth  of  investigation  has  come  the  demand 
for  better  means  of  work,  better  apparatus,  more  and 
better  books,  larger  collections,  and  especially  collections 
for  work,  not  for  show  or  surprise.  Better  teachers  are 
needed,  and  more  of  them.  A  healthy  competition  is 
set  up,  by  which  in  these  later  days  a  man's  pay  is  in 
some  degree  proportioned  to  his  power,  and  the  com- 
petition for  places  among  half-starved  men  Is  changing 
into  a  competition  for  men  among  rich  and  ambitious 
institutions. 

One  of  the  great  changes  which  have  come  to  Ameri- 
can education  has  been  the  extension  of  scientific  methods 
to  many  subjects  formerly  deemed  essentially  unscien- 
tific. For  this  change  the  influences  which  have  come 
to  us  from  Germany  are  largely  responsible.  Thirty 
years    ago  the  mental   philosophy   which  formed  the 


200  SCIENCE    AND     THE    COLLEGES. 

staple  of  the  work  of  the  college  president  was  thoroughly 
dogmatic,  like  his  moral  science  and  his  political  economy. 
It  was  a  completed  subject,  having  its  base  in  speculation 
and  its  growth  by  logical  deductions,  and  no  thought  of 
experimental  proof  or  of  advancement  by  investigation 
was  ever  brought  before  the  student. 

Now  psychology  is  completely  detached  from  meta- 
physics, and  is  an  experimental  science  as  much  as 
physiology  or  embryology.  By  its  side  ethics  and 
pedagogics  are  ranging  themselves  —  the  scientific  study 
of  children  and  the  study  of  the  laws  of  right,  by  the 
same  methods  as  those  we  use  to  test  the  laws  of  chem- 
ical affinity.  Metaphysics,  too,  has  ranged  itself  among 
the  historical  sciences.  It  is  the  study  no  longer  of  intu- 
itive and  absolute  truth,  but  the  critical  investigation  of 
the  outlook  of  man  on  the  universe,  as  shown  through 
the  history  of  the  ages.  The  old  metaphysical  idea  is 
passing  away,  soon  to  take  its  place  with  the  science  of 
the  dark  ages  in  which  it  rose. 

History,  too,  is  no  longer  a  chronicle  of  kings  and 
battles.  It  is  the  story  of  civilization,  the  science  of 
human  society  and  human  institutions.  The  Germans 
have  taught  us  that  all  knowledge  is  science,  capable  of 
being  placed  in  orderly  sequence,  and  of  being  increased 
by  the  method  of  systematic  investigation. 

The  study  of  language  now  finds  its  culmination  in  the 
science  of  philology,  the  science  of  the  growth  of  speech. 
Every  branch  of  learning  is  now  studied,  or  may  be 
studied,  inductively,  and  studied  in  the  light  of  the  con- 
ception of  endless  and  orderly  change,  to  which  we  give 
the  name  of  evolution.  This  conception  has  come  to 
be  recognized  as  one  underlying  all  human  knowledge. 


SCHOLARS    MAKE    THE    UNIVERSITY.       201 

Seasons  return  because  conditions  return,  but  the  condi- 
tions in  the  world  of  life  never  return.  The  present  we 
know,  but  we  can  know  it  thoroughly  only  in  the  light 
of  the  past.  What  has  been  must  determine  what  is, 
and  the  present  is  bound  to  the  past  by  unchanging  law. 
All  advance  in  knowledge  implies  a  recognition  of  this 
fact.  The  study  of  science  must  be  grounded  in  the 
conception  of  orderly  change,  or  change  in  accordance 
with  the  laws  of  evolution. 

It  is,  after  all,  the  presence  of  scholars  that  makes  the 
university.  It  is  in  such  men  that  the  University  of 
Illinois  has  its  existence.  It  is  located  neither  in  Cham- 
paign nor  in  Urbana;  it  is  wherever  its  teachers  may  be, 
wherever  its  workers  have  gone.  We  have  met  to-day 
to  dedicate  its  science  hall.  To  the  future  work  in  this  hall 
we  do  all  honor,  but  we  do  not  think  of  it  as  a  new  hall, 
nor  a  new  creation.  It  is  simply  a  natural  outgrowth  of 
the  work  of  Burrill  and  Forbes.  Ever  since,  in  1878,  I 
visited  the  little  zoological  workshop  of  Dr.  Forbes  in 
the  old  school  building  at  Normal,  and  ever  since,  in 
1882,  I  saw  toadstools  and  bacteria  in  the  little  room 
across  the  way,  which  Dr.  Burrill  called  his  own,  I  have 
been  able  to  prophesy  the  growth  of  this  building.  We 
care  nothing  for  the  brick  building,  its  desks,  its  shelves, 
and  its  microscopes,  as  things  in  themselves.  We  are 
thinking  of  Forbes  and  Burrill.  The  building  is  only  a 
better  tool-house  in  which  these  master-workmen  can 
shelter  their  tools.  Their  work  will  be  what  it  was 
before.  And  in  this  impulse  and  example  is  our  best 
guarantee  that  so  long  as  this  building  stands  we  shall 
find  in  it  master-workmen.  Another  Forbes,  another 
Burrill,  another  Rolfe  shall  fill  the  gaps  when  these  lay 


202  SCIENCE    AND     THE    COLLEGES. 

down  their  work,  and  the  University  of  Illinois  shall  live 
through  the  years,  because  the  men  who  compose  it  are 
truthful,  devoted,  and  strong. 


XIII. 
THE    PROCESSION    OF    LIFE.* 

I  ONCE  walked  one  Saturday  afternoon  out  from  the 
city  of  Canterbury  across  the  fields  of  Kent.  The  hops 
were  ripe  on  the  chalk  hills;  for  the  growing  of  hops  is 
the  chief  industry  in  that  part  of  England.  The  hop- 
pickers  had  finished  their  week's  work  and  were  return- 
ing to  their  homes  in  Canterbury  for  their  Sunday  rest. 
I  walked  out  on  the  Gadshill  road  and  met  them  on  the 
way  —  a  long,  long  procession  of  modern  pilgrims. 
They  came  by  hundreds  and  hundreds.  There  may 
have  been  five  thousand  of  them  in  all.  In  the  lead 
were  the  young  and  vigorous,  the  stalwart  young  man, 
the  spirited  young  woman,  those  who  thought  nothing 
of  a  ten-mile  walk  when  the  day's  work  was  over.  Next 
came  the  older  ones,  equally  strong,  but  more  serious, 
who  went  on  their  way  with  an  even  step;  while  behind 
these,  in  the  main  body  of  the  procession,  were  the  old 
and  the  young,  those  whose  strength  was  passing  and 
those  to  whom  strengfth  had  not  yet  come. 

Then,  behind  the  middle  came  those  who  had  more 
than  themselves  to  carry;  men  leading  boys  or  girls, 
women  with  baskets,  or  with  children  who  clung  to  their 
skirts.  Still  behind  these  were  women  carrying  babies, 
and  men  limping  on  crutches.  And,  last  of  all,  were 
men  who  had  taken  the  burden  of  a  load  of  gin  from 

*  Address  to  graduating  class.  University  of  Indiana,  1890. 
103 


204  THE    PROCESSION    OF    LIFE. 

some  wayside  tavern;  for  the  heaviest  load  a  man  can 
carry  is  the  weight  of  a  glass  of  liquor. 

And  the  thought  came  to  me,  as  I  watched  them,  that 
this  modem  procession  of  pilgrims  to  Canterbury  was 
but  a  fragment  of  a  greater  procession  which  moves 
before  our  eyes  all  our  lives  —  the  endless  procession  in 
which  you  who  go  from  us  to-day  step  forth  to  form  a 
part.  The  thought  of  a  Pilgrim's  Progress,  as  it  came  to 
John  Bunyan  in  the  Bedford  jail,  is  one  which  rises 
naturally  as  we  look  over  the  course  of  human  life. 
What  loads  have  we  to  carry,  and  how  shall  we  come 
to  our  journey's  end?  We  start  with  our  burdens  of 
hereditary  weaknesses  and  hereditary  sins,  and  to  these 
we  add  many  new  ones  which  we  take  up  along  the  road. 
What  prospect  have  we  of  reaching  Canterbury  before 
the  sun  goes  down  ?  And  of  what  avail  are  our  efforts 
on  the  road  if  we  never  reach  Canterbury  ? 

Or,  laying  aside  the  metaphor,  which  may  prove  cum- 
bersome, we  meet  the  old  question  which  comes  afresh  to 
every  man,  though  countless  generations  have  attempted 
its  solution;  what  for  us  constitutes  success  in  life?  Cer- 
tainly not  the  gaining  of  wealth,  though  many  of  our 
fellow-pilgrims  seem  to  think  so.  If  it  were  wealth 
alone,  we  have  surely  missed  the  way.  You  are  not  on 
the  right  road.  There  is  a  shorter  way  to  wealth  than 
the  way  you  have  taken,  though  the  road  may  not  lead 
to  Canterbury.  \{  you  spend  your  day  searching  for  gold, 
you  will  find  it.  A  man  finds  whatever  he  goes  forth  lo 
seek;  but  gold  has  no  value  except  the  value  your  fellow- 
pilgrims  agree  to  set  upon  it  —  the  worth  of  the  time,  we 
may  say,  they  waste  when  they  stop  to  look  for  it. 
When  a  man  is  alone  with  gold,  he  is  alone  with — nothing. 


BROKEN  LIVES.  aos 

Not  fame  alone  can  constitute  success.  The  gods 
care  little  for  what  men  say  of  one  another.  Not  the 
acquisition  of  power  alone.  The  force  of  man  can 
change  nothing  which  is  not  already  bound  to  change. 
A  lever  can  move  the  world  only  when  applied  to  a 
world  which  is  moving.  The  force  of  man  counts  for 
nothing  when  placed  in  opposition  to  the  laws  of  human 
development. 

We  are  encompassed  about  by  the  forces  that  make 
for  righteousness.  All  power  we  possess,  or  seem  to 
possess,  comes  from  our  accord  with  these  forces.  There 
is  no  lasting  force,  except  the  power  of  God.  All  else 
in  the  world  is  speedily  passing  away.  Is  there  no  suc- 
cess for  the  individual  ?  Are  all  lives  alike  ineffective  ? 
Not  so.  Measured  by  the  standard  of  the  Infinite,  all 
life  is  short,  and  weak,  and  impotent;  yet  we  know  that, 
gauged  by  the  measure  of  a  man,  there  are  many  lives 
which  are  successful.  We  have  all  come  in  contact  with 
such,  and  our  own  lives  have  been  the  richer  for  the 
contact.  But  we  know,  too,  that  there  are  broken  lives. 
We  pass  them  on  the  road.  They  stagger  against  us 
from  the  tavern  steps.  They  are  carried  on  for  a  time 
by  the  procession;  but  having  no  impulse  of  their  own, 
they  drop  farther  and  farther  behind  —  sometimes  alone, 
sometimes  dragging  others  with  them. 

These  are  not  successful  lives.  What  lessons  do  they 
teach  ?  What  have  these  broken  lives  in  common  ? 
And  what  is  this  common  element  which  we  who  hope 
for  success  can  avoid  ?  Is  it  poverty  ?  Is  life  a  failure 
if  we  gain  not  wealth,  we  who  now  live  in  the  wealthiest 
of  all  times,  here  among  the  richest  of  all  peoples  ? 

There  are  many  who  think  this.     Poverty  is  pictured 


2o6  THE    PROCESSION    OF   LIFE. 

as  the  yawning  and  relentless  gulf  beneath  our  whole  civ- 
ilization. If  we  avoid  poverty,  are  we  assured  against 
all  forms  of  spiritual  failure  ? 

We  know  that  this  is  not  true.  Broken  lives  are  as 
common  among  the  rich  as  among  the  poor.  In  the 
palace  and  the  hovel  we  may  look  for  them  alike. 
Chronic  poverty  may  be  a  sign  of  a  withered  spirit,  but 
it  is  not  the  cause.  The  real  disease  lies  far  behind  this, 
as  those  know  well  who  have  tried  to  heal  the  sores  of 
poverty  by  filling  them  with  gold. 

Poverty,  in  itself,  is  not  even  a  cause  for  discourage- 
ment. Poverty  has  been  through  the  ages  the  heritage 
of  the  student,  and  in  the  procession  of  life  the  student 
has  never  walked  in  the  rear.  You  who  stand  before 
me,  the  flower  of  our  student  body,  do  not  stand  with 
well-filled  purses.  Your  money  and  lands,  to  take  the 
average,  would  not  keep  you  for  a  single  year.  The 
inmates  of  many  poorhouses  could  make  a  better  actual 
showing  than  you  could  make  to-day.  Yet  you  are  not 
paupers.  No  one  dreams  of  thinking  you  such.  You 
have  something,  not  money,  which  helps  you  to  face  the 
future.  And  it  is  something  real  —  something  which  has 
a  quotable  value.  No;  the  element  of  hkeness  in  broken 
lives  is  not  their  poverty. 

Is  it  sickness  or  weakness  which  makes  failure  in  life  ? 
We  know  that  it  is  not.  Stalwart  frames  stand  all  about 
us  from  which  the  spirit  seems  to  have  fled,  while  there 
are  other  souls  whom  no  pain  or  disease  can  tame.  The 
great  name  of  the  nineteenth  century  cannot  be  that  of 
an  unsuccessful  man;  yet  for  forty  years  of  his  earnest 
and  beautiful  life  Darwin  knew  not  a  single  day  of  health 
such  as  other  men  enjoy — not  a  single  day  such  as 


LIFE    MADE    WORTHY.  207 

comes  unasked  and  unappreciated  to  you  and  to  me. 
Health  is  much,  but  it  is  not  everything.  A  withered 
arm  does  not  mean  a  broken  spirit. 

What  then  can  we  ask  as  our  surety  against  failure? 
That  which  we  seek,  does  it  not  lie  in  the  very  heart  of 
man,  the  presence  of  a  reason  for  living  ?  Is  not  this 
the  one  touchstone  which  through  the  ages  has  separated 
success  from  failure  in  life  ?  If  a  man  live  for  worthy 
ends,  his  life  is  made  worthy.  With  a  lifelong  purpose, 
and  a  purpose  worthy  of  a  life,  there  can  be  no  failure. 
How  can  there  be  ?  Be  a  life  long  or  short,  its  complete- 
ness depends  on  what  it  was  lived  for. 

Stand  for  something  —  something  worthy  to  build  a 
life  around.  As  your  aim,  so  your  life  is.  Your  purpose, 
like  an  amulet,  will  guard  you  from  failure.  While  it 
remains  intact,  yoyr  life  cannot  be  broken.  Poverty 
cannot  hold  you  down,  disease  cannot  weaken,  adversity 
cannot  crush.  Your  life  remains,  and  you  alone  can 
break  it.  It  takes  a  strong  impulse  to  live  a  life  out  to 
the  end.  If  you  live  to  no  true  purpose,  your  Hfe  is  a 
burden  on  the  atmosphere,  and  death  will  come  to  you 
long  before  you  even  suspect  it.  All  around  you  are 
those  who  have  'died  already  —  perhaps  never  have  lived 
at  all.  More  terrible  than  ghosts  or  disembodied  spirits 
is  the  spectacle  we  see  every  day  of  spiritless  bodies  — 
the  forms  of  those  who  move  and  breathe  when  we  know 
them  to  be  dead. 

And  so,  when  as  year  by  year  your  paths  diverge  over 
the  earth,  let  us  hope  and  pray,  that  you  may  live  your 
lives  out  to  the  end;  that  at  every  roll-call  in  this  world, 
when  you  answer  to  your  names,  it  will  be  in  the  full  cer- 
tainty that  you  are  still  alive. 


XIV. 
THE   GROWTH   OF   MAN.* 

A  WISE  man  once  said,  "The  Bible  was  written  by 
outdoor  men;  if  we  would  understand  it,  we  must 
read  it  out  of  doors,"  They  were  shepherds  and  fisher- 
men who  wrote  the  Bible;  men  who,  night  after  night, 
lay  under  the  stars,  and  to  whom  the  grass  on  the 
Judaean  hills  had  been  the  softest  of  pillows.  Even  kings 
and  prophets  were  out-of-door  men  in  the  days  of  Sam- 
uel and  David.  Out-of-door  men  speak  of  out-of-door 
things,  and  each  man  who  speaks  with  authority  must 
speak  of  things  which  he  knows. 

In  this  fact,  if  you  will  let  me  compare  small  things  to 
great,  you  will  find  my  apology  for  speaking  my  mes- 
sage to-day  in  my  own  way.  I  wish  to  draw  certain 
lessons  in  morals  from  certain  facts,  or  laws,  in  the  sci- 
ences of  which  I  know  something.  For  we  study  what 
we  call  Nature,  not  for  the  objects  themselves,  but  be- 
cause the  study  brings  us  nearer  to  the  heart  of  things, 
nearer  to  the  final  answer  to  all  the  problems  of  death 
and  of  life. 

There  is  a  stage  in  the  development  of  the  human 
embryo  when  it  is  not  yet  human,  when  it  cannot  be  dis- 
tinguished from  the  embryo  of  other  mammals,  as  of  a 
dog  or  a  sheep.  There  may  be,  at  the  same  time,  two 
embryos  apparently  alike,  the  one  destined  to  be  a  dog, 

*  Commencement  Address,  University  of  Indiana,  18S9. 

aos 


THE    POTENTIALITY   IN   EMBRYOS,        209 

because  of  its  canine  ancestry;  the  other,  in  like  manner, 
to  become  human.  These  two,  we  may  assume,  may  be 
absolutely  alike  to  all  the  tests  we  can  offer.  They  differ 
neither  in  structure,  nor  in  form,  nor  in  chemical  compo- 
sition. The  lines  along  which  they  develop  seem  par- 
allel for  a  time,  but  at  last  divergence  becomes  evident, 
and  their  courses  separate  forever.  The  one  seems  to 
lose,  little  by  little,  its  human  possibilities,  while  the  other 
goes  too  far  in  its  way  ever  to  turn  aside  to  doghood. 
The  one  moves  toward  its  end  as  man;  the  other  toward 
its  destiny  as  dog. 

But  a  difference  must  exist,  even  when  the  identity  of 
the  two  seems  most  perfect — a  difference  intangible, 
immaterial,  but  none  the  less  potent  in  its  certainty  to 
lead  to  results.  The  one  embryo  holds  within  it  the  pos- 
sibility of  humanity  which  the  other  has  not.  No  condi- 
tions of  which  we  can  conceive  will  bring  the  dog  embryo 
to  manhood,  because  the  possibility  of  manhood  is  not  in 
it.  There  is  something  which  transcends  chemistry, 
which  tends  to  bring  each  embryo  through  many  changes 
to  a  predetermined  end. 

This  is  essentially  true  if  the  development  be  complete 
and  n(jrmal.  If  its  growth  goes  on  in  the  wonted  fash- 
ion, it  becomes  what  it  can  become.  Its  enclosed  poten- 
tiality, or  hidden  powers,  give  form  to  its  life.  But  not 
all  development  is  normal.  Growth  may  cease  prema- 
turely, or  it  may  be  cut  short  by  death,  and  that  which 
might  have  been  a  man  becomes  as  nothing;  or  arrested 
development  may  leave  a  state  of  perpetual  immaturity. 
This  happens  among  men  sometimes.  There  are  dwarfe 
in  body  and  dwarfs  in  mind — those  who  reach  the  age 
of  manhood  while  retaining  the  stature  or  the  intellect  of 
o 


2IO  THE    GROWTH    OF   MAN. 

children.  Again,  decay  and  decline  come  sooner  or 
later  to  all  living  things.  If  decline  begins  prematurely, 
we  have  degeneration  instead  of  development.  What  is 
true  of  man  in  these  regards  is  true  of  all  life  in  its  de- 
gree; for  there  is  no  law  of  human  development  which 
does  not,  in  corresponding  measure,  apply  to  animals 
and  plants. 

On  the  other  hand,  progress  begets  progress.  Natur- 
alists tell  us  of  cases  of  development  beyond  ancestral 
lines,  of  perfection  beyond  previous  completeness.  In 
such  growth,  the  conditions  which  mark  full  maturity  in 
the  ancestor  become  phases  of  youth  in  the  ambitious 
progeny.  The  maturity  of  the  latter  in  one  or  more  ways 
overleaps  ancestral  lines.  Such  advanced  development 
here  and  there  through  the  organic  world  is  one  of  the 
causes  of  the  progress  of  the  mass.  By  the  side  of  the 
philosopher  the  common  man  seems  like  a  child.  The 
development  of  great  souls  has  gone  on  in  accordance 
with  a  higher  potentiality  than  ours.  Or,  rather,  it  may 
be  in  accordance  with  a  potentiality  which  we  possess, 
but  which  has  lain  dormant  within  us.  For  great  men 
need  great  occasions.  Circumstances  affect  all  develop- 
ment. They  may  draw  us  out,  or  they  may  hem  us  in. 
They  may  raise  us,  as  it  were,  above  ourselves,  or  they 
may  close  around  us,  so  that  the  man  we  ought  to  have 
been  we  are  only  in  our  dreams.  And  if  the  environment 
be  too  exacting,  even  these  dreams  cease  at  last. 

The  lower  animals  and  plants  offer  analogies  to  this. 
Each  individual  develops  along  the  line  of  the  resultant 
between  the  force  of  its  own  potentiality  and  the  resist- 
ance of  its  environment.  Thus,  all  degrees  of  fitness  are 
produced,  and  firom  these  varying  degrees  comes  our 


ACCELERATION    IN   DEVELOPMENT.       211 

perception  of  the  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest  in  the 
struggle  for  existence.  One  of  the  primal  causes  of 
difference  in  organic  life  lies  in  the  conditions  of  advanced 
or  retarded  development.  A  higher  —  that  is,  a  more 
definitely  developed — organism  is  one  that  has  taken  a 
step  in  its  growth  beyond  those  taken  by  its  ancestors. 
It  has  omitted  non-essential  phases  and  has  leaped  at 
once  to  a  higher  range  of  its  possibilities.  It  has  come 
so  much  nearer  the  fulfillment  of  the  potentialities  within 
it.  Another  organism  may  stop  short  of  ancestral  ac- 
quirements. It  is  degenerate;  for  less  of  its  potentiality 
has  become  actuality  than  in  its  ancestors. 

Florists  save  the  seed  of  their  fairest  flowers,  that  from 
these  the  species  may  reach  still  higher  perfection. 
Stock-breeders  recognize  that  individual  gains  are  inher- 
ited, and  they  choose  their  stock  accordingly.  So  we 
have,  year  by  year,  swifter  race-horses,  better  milk  cows, 
sheep  with  heavier  fleece,  more  sagacious  dogs,  and 
pigeons  of  more  fantastic  forms.  Along  certain  lines  of 
development  anything  is  possible  with  time  and  patience. 
Because  this  is  so,  with  each  generation  our  domestic 
animals  and  plants  become  better  and  better  adapted  to 
satisfy  man's  needs  or  man's  fancy.  But  the  potentiality 
of  the  race-horse  was  in  the  old  nag,  its  far-off  ancestor, 
who  may  have  trotted  his  leisurely  mile  in  ten  minutes. 
The  potentiality  of  the  trained  dog,  ' '  who  can  do  any- 
thing but  talk,"  lay  in  the  gaunt  and  cowardly  wolf, 
from  which  the  races  of  dogs  are  descended. 

More  perfect  development  comes  from  within,  and  is 
assisted,  not  caused,  by  favorable  surroundings.  This  is 
shown  in  the  very  terms  we  use.  We  educate — that  is, 
we  "lead  out."     We  ^tfi/^/^/— that  is,  we  "unwrap" 


212  THE    GROWTH    OF   MAN. 

what  was  hidden  in  the  original  package.  We  evolve  — 
that  is,  we  "unroll,"  as  the  ball  of  the  fern-bud  unrolb 
into  the  great  fern  leaf.  And  so  we  unroll,  unwrap,  lead 
out  whatever  is  already  within.  We  can  help  to  actualize 
latent  possibilities.  But  whatever  is  finally  brought  forth 
existed  in  potentiaUty  in  the  embryo,  no  matter  how 
inert  and  impotent  this  may  have  been.  But  not  alone 
in  the  embryo;  for  whatever  is  in  the  embryo  must  have 
been  a  possibility  with  the  parent. 

No  great  thing  comes  from  nothingness.  There  must 
have  been  strength  behind  it.  There  must  have  been  a 
potential  Lincoln  in  Lincoln's  humble  ancestrj',  else  a 
Lincoln  could  not  have  been.  We  can  trust  that  studies 
in  genealogy  will  some  time  show  this.  In  each  life  there 
must  exist  a  potentiality  of  something  not  yet  attained. 
Were  it  not  so,  the  bounds  of  progress  would  be  already 
reached,  and  swifter  horses,  brighter  flowers,  sweeter 
songs,  nobler  thoughts,  and  purer  lives  than  have  already 
been  there  could  never  be.  Potentiality  may  be  con- 
ceived as  a  series  of  direct  lines  leading  from  the  past 
into  the  future,  outward  into  space.  The  highest  poten- 
tiality is  that  one  of  these  lines  which  most  favors 
fullness  of  life.  For  any  organism  to  grow  along  this 
highest  line  is  for  it  to  make  the  most  of  itself —  and  the 
most  of  its  descendants,  too;  for  the  will  to  do  the  best 
may  fall  into  the  grasp  of  heredity.  The  gain  of  the 
individual  becomes  the  birthright  of  the  race.  The  man 
of  yesterday  is  a  child  beside  the  man  of  to-morrow. 
Our  ancestors  of  centuries  ago  dwelt  beside  the  Swiss 
lakes  in  children's  playhouses.  Whatever  one  genera- 
tion has  tried  persistently  to  do,  the  next  may  accomplish 
easily.     If  by  effort  we  have,  as  it  were,  excelled  our- 


GREAT  MEN  ARE    THE   REAL    MEN.         213 

selves,  our  children  may  also  without  effort  excel  us  in 
the  same  line.  The  man  we  dream  of  will  be  above  the 
weaknesses  of  past  humanity.  The  perfect  man  will  be 
the  master  of  the  world,  because  the  perfect  master  of 
himself. 

As  in  the  physical  world  there  are  many  departures 
from  the  normal  type,  there  may  be  partial,  distorted,  or 
degraded  development.  In  the  moral  world  the  same 
conditions  exist;  and  such  departures  from  the  ideal 
type  we  call  sin.  Sin  is  man's  failure  to  realize  his 
highest  possibilities.  Its  measure  is  the  discrepancy 
between  the  actual  and  the  possible  man.  It  is  the 
spiritual  analogue  of  retrograde  or  distorted  develop- 
ment. Personal  degeneration  is  sin.  Misery,  in  general, 
is  nature's  protest  against  personal  degeneration. 

Total  depravity  is  not  the  state  of  nature.  It  is  the 
good  man  who  is  natural;  it  is  the  weak  and  vicious  who 
are  least  human.  "  Great  men  are  the  true  men,"  says 
Amiel,  "  the  men  in  whom  nature  has  succeeded.  They 
are  not  extraordinary.  They  are  in  the  true  order.  It 
is  the  other  kinds  of  men  that  are  not  what  they  ought 
to  be.  If  we  wish  to  respect  men,  we  must  forget  what 
they  are  and  think  of  the  ideal  they  have  hidden  in  them 
—  of  the  just  man  and  the  noble,  the  man  of  intelligence 
and  goodness,  inspiration  and  creative  force,  who  is  loyal 
and  true, —  of  the  higher  man  and  that  divine  thing  we 
call  soul.  The  only  men  who  deserve  the  name  are  the 
heroes,  the  geniuses,  the  saints,  the  harmonious,  power- 
ful, and  perfect  examples  of  the  race." 

If,  then,  sin  is  retarded  or  distorted  development, 
righteousness  is  further  development  along  the  line  of  our 
ethical  possibilities.    Righteousness  is  thus  achieved  only 


214  THE    GROWTH    OF   MAN. 

by  constant  effort  in  the  direction  of  self-control  and  self- 
devotion.  As  Aristotle  says,  * '  Nature  does  not  make 
us  either  good  or  bad;  she  only  gives  us  the  opportunity 
to  become  good  or  bad  —  that  is,  of  shaping  our  own  char- 
acters." "Emphasize  as  you  will,"  says  Dr.  Schur- 
mann,  *  *  the  bulk  of  the  inheritance  I  have  received  from 
my  ancestors,  it  still  remains  that  in  moral  character  I 
am  what  I  make  myself"  This  is  the  higher  heredity, 
the  aggregate  of  all  our  own  past  actions  or  conditions; 
our  deeds  in  the  "vanished  yesterdays  that  rule  us  abso- 
lutely." "On  stepping-stones  of  their  dead  selves  do 
men  rise  to  higher  things."  And  in  a  similar  way,  on 
stepping-stones  of  their  ancestry,  do  races  of  men  rise 
to  higher  civilization.  But  without  effort,  conscious  or 
unconscious,  in  the  direction  of  a  higher  life,  each  suc- 
ceeding generation  will  fail  to  rise  above  the  level  of 
those  before  it.  Then,  as  nothing  is  stable  in  the  world 
of  life,  where  there  is  no  advance  there  will  be  retro- 
gression. And  thus  have  fallen  all  races,  and  nations, 
and  communities  whose  guiding  principle  has  not  been 
the  fulfillment  of  duty. 

If  there  be  any  truth  at  the  basis  of  these  analogies, 
they  are  susceptible  of  wide  application  to  the  affairs 
of  human  life. 

The  central  thought  of  modem  biology  is  that  all  life  is 
bound  together  by  heredity,  the  ancestry  of  all  beings 
going  back  with  gradual  changes  through  countless  ages 
to  simpler  and  simpler  forms.  Connected  with  this  is 
the  fact  that  the  various  stages  in  the  development  of  an 
embryo  correspond  essentially  with  the  conditions  of  full 
development  in  the  creatures  which,  one  before  another, 
have  preceded  its  appearance  in  geological  history. 


CONDUCT    THAT  JUSTIFIES    ITSELF.       215 

**  The  physical  life  of  the  individual  is  an  epitome  of 
the  history  of  the  group  to  which  it  belongs."  The 
embryonic  life  of  the  child  corresponds  in  a  general  way 
to  the  history  of  the  group  which  culminates  in  man. 
The  stages  in  the  mental  development  of  the  child 
of  this  century  represent  roughly  the  stages  passed 
through  in  the  infancy  of  our  race.  In  this  sense  each 
hfe  is  a  condensation  of  the  history  of  all  life.  "  In  every 
grave,"  says  the  German  proverb,  "lies  a  world's  his- 
tory." 

From  our  study  of  evolution  arises  the  new  science 
of  ethics,  which  teaches  what  ought  to  be  from  the 
knowledge  of  what  has  been.  ' '  Time  was,  unlocks  the 
riddle  of  Time  is. "  The  central  question  in  this  study 
cannot  be,  as  some  have  said,  "what  in  the  past  man  has 
thought  ought  to  be,"  but  what  in  the  past  has  justified 
itself  by  leading  man  on  to  higher  things.  We  can  dis- 
cover traces  of  the  path  which  humanity  shall  tread,  by 
looking  backward  over  the  road  humanity  has  trodden, 
not  alone  over  the  early  history  of  man;  for  only  the 
smaller  portion  of  this  is  within  our  reach.  Our  history 
of  man  is  only  a  history  of  civilization;  for  barbarism 
writes  no  history,  We  can  look  beyond  the  clouded 
period  of  human  barbarism  to  the  still  older  history 
which  we  share  with  the  brute.  If  we  find  the  line  of 
direction  of  past  development  from  animalism  to  civiliza- 
tion, we  may  in  a  way  project  this  line  into  the  future  as 
the  direction  of  human  progress. 

What  is  this  line  of  direction  ?  How  does  man  differ 
from  the  brute  ? 

The  intellect  of  man  is  certainly  a  distinctive  posses- 
sion.    It  is  not  necessary,  as  has  been  said,   '  *  to  deny 


2i6  THE    GROWTH    OF   MAN. 

intelligence  to  the  lower  animals  when  we  assert  that  the 
human  mind  is  the  most  colossal  and  revolutionary  of  all 
the  modifications  any  species  has  undergone."  It  is  not 
necessary  to  deny  the  elements  of  conscience  to  a  dog  or 
a  horse  in  recognizing  the  fact  that  conscience  is  one  of 
the  essential  attributes  of  manhood.  The  feeling  of 
individual  responsibility,  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil 
—  this  is  man's  burden  and  his  glory.  Intellect  and  con- 
science—  these  are  the  acquisitions  won  by  humanity, 
and  by  virtue  of  which  it  is  humanity. 

This  thought  need  not  prevent  our  recognition  of  the 
natural  origin  of  these  powers;  for  all  phenomena  are 
alike  natural.  The  simple  automatic  reflex  action  in  which 
the  psychic  force  of  the  lower  animals  expresses  itself  is 
unquestionably  the  prototype  of  all  nervous  processes. 
Sensation  —  thought  —  action  :  this  is  the  only  order 
in  which  these  phenomena  can  arise.  The  senses  are 
the  only  source  of  action.  All  thought  tends  to  pass 
over  into  deeds,  and  no  mental  process  is  complete  until 
it  has  wrought  itself  into  action.  The  brain  has  no 
teacher  save  the  sensory  nerves,  which  bring  it  knowl- 
edge. Its  only  servant  is  the  muscles,  for  by  their  agency 
alone  can  it  reach  the  outside  world.  In  its  essence,  the 
intellect  is  the  ability  to  choose  among  many  possible 
responses  in  action.  Simple  reflex  action,  or  "instinct," 
has  no  choice.  It  acts  automatically,  and  in  its  one 
unchanging  way.  To  choose  one  act  rather  than  another 
is  an  intellectual  process.  This  power  of  choice  brings 
its  responsibilities.  Whoever  chooses  must  choose  aright. 
Wrong  choice  carries  its  own  destruction.  The  con- 
science is  the  recognition,  more  or  less  automatic,  that 
some  lines  of  choice  are  better  than  others,  and  must  be 


ORIGIN    OF    CONSCIENCE.  217 

followed.  By  ' '  better, ' '  in  this  connection,  we  must  mean 
favoring  life.  That  is  best  that ' '  brings  life  more  abun- 
dantly. ' '  That  is  best  which  brings  self-realization  to 
the  individual  and  to  his  fellows.  In  social  life,  self- 
seeking  is  not  "right,"  even  for  the  individual.  For 
the  welfare  of  the  one  is  bound  up  in  the  welfare  of  all. 
Here  arises  the  ever-present  problem  of  the  conciliation 
of  the  claims  of  oneself  and  the  claims  of  others.  To 
solve  this  problem  is  part  of  the  work  of  the  rational  life. 
All  right  must  be  relative.  It  may  be  compared  to  a  line 
of  direction  rather  than  a  position  in  space.  There  can 
be  no  absolute  righteousness.  If  there  were,  it  would 
mark  the  limit  of  spiritual  growth. 

To  show  the  origin  of  conscience  by  the  natural  pro- 
cesses of  development  and  competition  in  life  is  not  to 
deny  its  existence  or  to  lower  its  importance.  All  things 
we  know  are  natural  alike  —  the  creation  of  man,  or  the 
formation  of  a  snow-bank.  All  are  alike  supernatural ;  for 
the  nature  we  know  is  not  the  whole  of  nature.  Any 
fact  or  process  becomes  exalted  when  we  see  it  in  its  true 
relation,  as  inherent  in  the  nature  of  things.  Right 
conduct,  so  Emerson  tells  us,  is  "  conformity  in  action 
to  the  nature  of  things,  and  the  nature  of  things  makes 
it  prevalent."  The  automatic  or  rational  recognition  of 
the  fact  that  one  response  is  better  than  another  is  an 
attribute  of  man.  The  stronger  the  conscience  of  man 
or  race,  the  higher  its  place  in  the  scale  of  spiritual 
development  The  conscience  is  the  real  essence  of  that 
"something  not  ourselves  that  makes  for  righteousness." 
For  that  "something,"  though  "not  ourselves,"  has 
its  seat  in  the  nature  of  man.  The  fulfillment  of  the 
noblest  possibilities  of  the   individual  —  that   is  right. 


2i8  THE     GROWTH    OF   MAN. 

What  falls  short  of  this  is  arrest  of  development,  imper- 
fection, sin. 

The  conscience  no  more  than  any  other  group  of 
mental  processes  can  claim  infallibility.  It  may  be  dis- 
torted, dormant,  ineffective.  A  "clear"  conscience  is 
of  itself  the  result  of  normal  development.  Arrested 
development  is  none  the  less  a  fault  that  its  subject  is 
not  aware  of  it.  Nature  absolves  no  sinner  on  the  plea 
of  ignorance  of  her  laws.  The  bent  twig  is  none  the 
less  bent  that  outside  influences  have  done  the  bending. 
The  tree  should  have  grown  upright,  and  in  this  it  has 
failed. 

It  is  often  said  that  conscience  is  only  relative;  that 
what  is  right  to-day  will  be  wrong  to-morrow,  and  there 
can  be  no  absolute  good  but  the  pleasure  or  the  utility 
of  the  individual.  What  is  the  truth  of  this  ?  Let  us 
take  for  illustration  the  customs  and  laws  of  marriage. 
The  patriarchs  of  old  did  wrong,  so  the  chronicles  tell 
us;  but  neither  the  patriarchs  nor  their  prophets,  scath- 
ing moralists  though  these  were,  counted  the  possession 
of  many  wives  as  even  the  least  of  their  wrong-doings. 
The  sin  of  David  lay  not  in  taking  another  wife,  but  in 
the  murder  which  gave  him  possession  of  her.  Our 
civilization  now  condemns  polygamy,  and  our  statutes 
and  beliefs  tend  to  exalt  the  sanctity  and  the  unity  of  the 
home.  Is  marriage  for  life  but  a  fashion  of  the  time, 
to  pass  away  as  polygamy  has  done,  when  opposite  tend- 
encies have  sway?  Is  the  one  really  right,  and  the 
other  really  wrong?  What  tests  can  we  apply  to  this 
question  ? 

It  can  be  shown,  I  think,  that  the  richest  human  life 
is  dependent  upon  the  development  of  the  home.     The 


GROWTH    OF    THE    HOME.  219 

elevation  of  woman  has  been  the  keystone  in  modem 
social  development  The  ennobling  of  the  wife  and 
mother  means  the  elevation  of  the  race.  And  the  eleva- 
tion of  woman  is  impossible  in  polygamy.  If  this  be 
true,  the  highest  potentiality  of  the  race  can  be  brought 
about  only  through  the  marriage  of  the  equal  man  with  the 
equal  w^oman.  It  may  be  literally  true  that  polygamy, 
wife-beating,  wife-selling,  and  similar  practices  were  right 
in  the  infancy  of  the  race.  They  may  be  right  among 
races  still  in  their  infancy.  "It  is  their  condemnation 
that  light  has  come  into  the  world."  They  may  be  part 
of  a  stage  of  growth  through  which  humanity  must  pass 
before  higher  things  are  possible. 

In  like  manner,  we  have  gone  through  a  slow  process 
of  development  in  our  regard  for  the  rights  of  others.  To 
the  lower  animals,  each  other  animal  is  an  alien  and  an 
enemy.  A  little  higher  in  the  scale  we  observe  the  rudi- 
ments of  family,  or  social,  life;  yet,  in  a  general  way,  to 
the  brute  all  other  brutes  are  objects  of  suspicion  and 
hatred.  The  earlier  tribes  of  men  killed  the  stranger, 
and  doubtless  ate  him,  too,  with  perfect  serenity  of  con- 
science. Even  the  most  enlightened  nation  of  ancient 
times  murdered  and  robbed  all  alien  to  their  race,  as  a 
high  and  sacred  duty  toward  the  Lord.  Their  God  was 
a  god  of  batties. 

Every  foot  of  soil  in  Evu-ope  bears  the  stain  of  blood 
wantonly  shed.  There  is  not  a  moment  in  its  history 
but  has  been  marked  by  some  cry  of  angubh.  The 
history  of  the  Old  World  has  been  one  long  story  of 
needless  suffering  and  needless  waste.  Yet  the  wave  of 
brutality  has  been  an  ever-receding  tide.  With  each  cen- 
tury it  rises  never  so  high  again.    We  have  seen  the  last 


220  THE    GROWTH    OF   MAN. 

St.  Bartholomew,  the  last  Bloody  Assizes,  and  perhaps  the 
last  Waterloo  and  the  last  Sedan.  The  old  house  ' '  in 
Duizend  Vreezen, ' '  the  house  of  the  ' '  thousand  terrors, ' ' 
on  the  marketplace  of  Rotterdam,  stands  as  a  memorial 
of  what  can  never  happen  again.  Human  life  is  growing 
sacred.  The  history  of  civilization  is  a  story  of  the 
growth  of  kindness  and  tolerance  among  men. 

The  history  of  slavery  teaches  us  the  same  lesson. 
Once  to  enslave  a  conquered  enemy  was  to  treat  him 
with  comparative  kindness.  Slavery  is  a  positive  advance 
from  cannibalism,  or  from  massacre.  We  find  no  con- 
demnation of  slavery  in  the  early  history  of  the  Jews. 
We  find  none  in  the  early  history  of  Europe.  Slaves 
have  been  bought  and  sold  in  our  country  by  strong, 
pure  men,  who  felt  no  rebuke  of  conscience.  The  heroes 
of  the  Revolutionary  history  were  not  abolitionists. 

Yet  it  is  true,  "for  the  Lord  hath  said  it,"*  that  the 
man  of  the  future  will  not  be  a  slave-holder.  There 
can  be  no  free  men  in  a  land  where  some  are  slaves, 
because  whatever  oppression  comes  to  my  neighbor  in 
some  sort  comes  to  me.  "  He  hath  made  of  one 
blood  all  the  nations  of  the  earth,"  and  "  Whatsoever 

*  This  metaphor  may  find  its  justification  in  the  lines  of  Maurice  Thomp- 
aon: 

— "  I  am  a  Southerner. 
I  love  the  South.    I  dared  for  her 
To  fight  from  Lookout  to  the  Sea 
With  her  proud  banner  over  me. 
But  from  my  lips  thanksgiving  broke 
When  God  in  battle  thunder  spoke. 
And  that  black  idol,  breeding  drouth 
And  dearth  of  human  sympathy, 
Throughout  the  sweet  and  sensuous  South, 
Was,  with  its  chains  and  human  yoke 
Blown  hellward  from  the  cannon's  mouth 
While  Freedom  cheered  behind  the  smoke." 


OUR  BROTHERS,  THE  LOWER  ANIMALS.    221 

ye  do  to  one  of  the  least  of  these  my  brethren,  ye  do  it 
unto  me." 

We  know  that  humanity  is  growing  toward  the  recog- 
nition of  the  need  of  equal  opportunity  for  all  men  and 
women.  The  cardinal  doctrine  of  democracy  is  "Equal 
rights  for  all,  exclusive  privileges  to  none. ' '  This  is  the 
tendency  of  human  institutions.  *'  We  hold  these  truths 
to  be  self-evident,"  said  our  fathers  a  century  ago,  "that 
all  men  are  created  free  and  equal,  endowed  with  certain 
inalienable  rights,  and  that  among  these  rights  are  life, 
liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness."  And  these  rights 
cannot  be  denied,  even  though  the  image  of  God  shine 
faintly  through  a  dusky  skin. 

The  feeling  of  brotherhood  is  extending  to  the  brute 
creation.  A  society  for  "the  prevention  of  cruelty  to 
animals  "  would  have  been  inconceivable  in  the  days  of 
Front-de-Bceuf  or  of  Cceur-de-Lion.  It  is  inconceivable 
now  in  those  countries  which  are  a  century  or  two  behind 
our  race  in  the  march  of  civilization.  In  the  city  of 
Havana,  in  the  early  morning,  long  lines  of  mules  laden 
with  pigs  and  sheep  come  in  from  the  country.  These 
animals'  legs  are  bound,  and  they  are  slung  head  down- 
ward, in  pairs  saddlewise,  over  the  back  of  a  mule.  Thus 
they  come  down  from  the  mountains  in  long  processions, 
the  pigs  lustily  squealing,  the  sheep  helpless  and  dumb. 
No  one  notes  their  suffering;  for  in  Cuba  no  one  seems 
to  care  for  an  animal's  pain.  On  Sunday  afternoons  in 
the  same  city  of  Havana,  fair  ladies  and  gay  cavaliers 
repair  to  the  brightest  of  their  festivals,  the  bull-fight. 
A  bull- fight  is  not  a  fight;  it  is  simply  a  butchery;  a  fair 
battle  has  some  justification.  The  bull,  maddened  by 
pricks  and  stabs,  is  permitted  to  rip  up  and  kill  some 


222  THE    GROWTH    OF   MAN. 

two  or  three  feeble  or  blind  horses,  to  be  afterwards 
stabbed  to  death  himself  by  a  skillful  butcher.  A  civil- 
ization which  delights  in  scenes  like  this  is  to  us  simple 
barbarism.  The  growth  of  the  race  is  away  from  such 
things.  Cruelty  to  animals  may  not  have  been  wrong 
when  the  race  was  undeveloped,  and  no  conscience 
enlightened  enough  to  condemn  it.  Cruelty  in  all  its 
forms  is  a  badge  of  immaturity,  and  toward  neither  man 
nor  beast  will  the  ideal  man  of  the  future  be  cruel.  With 
time  the  feeling  of  brotherhood  will  extend  to  all  living 
things,  so  far  as  community  of  sensation  makes  them 
akin  to  us. 

We  cannot  tell  how  far  this  feeling  of  brotherhood  must 
go.  This  is  certain,  that  our  present  relation  toward 
animals,  right  as  they  may  be  now,  will  some  day  be 
barbarous.  It  may  be  that  the  time  will  come  when  the 
civilized  man  will  feel  that  the  rights  of  every  living  crea- 
ture on  the  earth  are  as  sacred  as  his  own.  This  end 
may  be  far  away,  too  far  for  us  even  to  dream  of  it;  but 
anything  short  of  this  cannot  be  perfect  civilization. 

"  If  man  were  what  he  should  be,"  says  Amiel,  "he 
would  be  adored  by  the  lower  animals,  toward  whom  he 
is  too  often  the  capricious  and  sanguinary  tyrant.  A  day 
will  come  when  our  standard  will  be  higher,  our  human- 
ity more  exacting.  '  Homo  hotnini  lupus ^ '  said  Hobbes, 
'  man  toward  men  is  a  wolf.'  The  time  will  come  when 
man  will  be  humane,  even  toward  the  wolf —  ^horno  lupo 
homo:'' 

No  fact  in  Jewish  history  stands  out  more  clearly  than 
that  of  the  gradual  growth  of  the  law  of  love.  * '  An  eye 
for  an  eye,  a  tooth  for  a  tooth" — even  this  marks  a 
great  advance  over  the  ethics  of  the  Ammonites  and  the 


LOVE     YOUR    ENEMIES.  223 

children  of  Heth.  Yet  between  this  and  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount  lies  the  whole  difference  between  barbarism 
and  the  highest  civilization. 

"  Ye  have  heard  that  it  hath  been  said,  Thou  shalt  love  thy 
neighbor  and  hate  thine  enemy;  but  I  say  unto  you,  Lx>ve  your 
enemies;  bless  them  that  curse  you;  do  good  to  them  that  hate 
you." 

"  But  dig  down,  the  old  unbury,  thou  shalt  find  on  every  stone 
That  each  age  has  carved  the  symbol  of  that  God  to  them  was 

known. 
Ugly  shapes  and  brutish  sometimes;  but  the  fairest  that  they 

knew; 
If  their  sight  were  dim  and  earthward,  yet  their  hope  and  aim 

were  true. 
As  the  gods  were,  so  their  laws  were,  Thor  the  strong  might 

rave  and  steal, 
So  through  many  a  peaceful  inlet  tore  the  Norseman's  eager 

keel. 
But  a  new  law  came  when  Christ  came,  and  not  blameless  as 

before, 
Can  we,  paying  Him  our  lip-tithes,  g^ve  our  lives  and  faiths  to 

Thor." 

This  question,  then,  is  ours — Are  we  doing  our  part 
in  the  growth  of  the  race  ?  In  the  current  of  life  are  we 
moving  forward?  Do  our  years  mark  milestones  in 
humanity's  struggle  toward  perfection?  Is  the  god 
within  us  so  much  the  more  unrolled,  when  our  develop- 
ment has  reached  its  highest  point  ?  Can  we  transmit  to 
our  children  a  better  heritage  of  brain  and  soul  than  our 
fathers  left  to  us  ?  Has  the  race  through  us  gained  some 
little  in  the  direction  of  the  law  of  love  ?  If  we  have 
done  our  part  in  this  struggle,  our  lives  have  not  been  in 
vain.     If  we  have  shirked  and  hung  back,  then  ours  is  a 


224  THE    GROWTH    OF    MAN. 

line  of  retrograde  descent,  and  our  lineage  is  a  withered 
branch  on  the  tree  of  humanity. 

To  live  aright,  is  to  guide  our  lives  in  the  direction  in 
which  humanity  is  going  —  not  all  humanity,  not  average 
humanity,  but  that  saving  remnant  from  whose  loins 
shall  spring  the  better  man  of  the  future.  The  purpose 
of  life  is  to  be  as  near  the  man  of  the  future  as  the  man 
of  the  present  can  be.  But  we  must  be  patient,  with  all 
our  striving.  The  end  of  life  is  not  yet.  Humanity  is 
still  in  its  infancy,  and  this  old  world  is  old  only  in  com- 
parison with  the  years  of  human  life.  Only  through 
centuries  on  centuries  of  struggle  and  aspiration  can 
humanity  approach  divinity  and  the  law  of  love  be 
supreme. 

Books  have  been  written  on  the  seven  or  eight  "  de- 
cisive battles"  in  the  history  of  civilization.  Great 
battles  there  have  been ;  but  the  stake  in  any  battle  is 
less  than  it  appears.  There  can  have  been  no  decisive 
battles.  The  growth  in  humanity  goes  on  whether 
battles  be  lost  or  won.  The  leaven  of  Christianity 
would  have  wrought  its  work  in  Europe  if  Charles  Martel 
had  been  overpowered  by  the  Moors  at  Poitiers.  A 
battie  may  decide  the  fate  of  a  man  or  a  nation,  but  not 
the  fate  of  humanity.  Kings  cannot  check  its  growth. 
Priests  cannot  smother  it.  It  is  never  buried  in  the  dust 
of  defeat. 

Slavery  died  not  because  the  battle  of  Gettysburg  was 
lost.  It  was  doomed  from  the  beginning,  and  its  death 
was  only  a  question  of  time.  Nothing  could  have  saved 
it,  and  the  success  of  its  defenders  on  the  field  of  battle 
would  only  have  postponed  the  end.  The  forces  of 
nature  are  fatal  to  it.     Even  the  law  of  gravitation  and 


THE    MAN   OF    THE    FUTURE.  225 

the  multiplication-table  would  have  conquered  it  at  last. 
That  which  endures  is  that  which  brings  out  the  higher 
potentialities  of  manhood.     All  else  must  pass  away. 

Not  long  ago,  in  a  gallery  in  Brussels,  I  saw  that 
striking  painting  of  Wiertz,  ' '  The  Man  of  the  Future 
and  the  Things  of  the  Past."  The  man  of  the  future 
has  in  his  open  right  hand  a  handful  of  marshals,  guns, 
swords,  and  battle-flags,  the  paraphernalia  of  Napoleon's 
campaigns.  These  he  is  carefully  examining  with  a 
magnifying-glass  which  he  holds  above  them  in  his  left 
hand.  At  the  same  time  a  child  beside  him  looks  on  in 
open-eyed  wonder  that  a  man  should  care  so  much  for 
such  little  things  as  these.  For  these  banners  and  arms, 
so  potent  in  their  day,  dwindle  to  the  proportions  of 
children's  toys  when  seen  in  the  long  perspective  of 
human  development. 

The  decline  and  fall  of  empires  is  not  decline  or  decay. 
It  is  the  breaking  of  the  clods  above  the  growing  man. 
Kings  and  nations  recede  as  man  moves  on.  The  love 
of  country  must  merge  into  the  higher  patriotism,  the 
love  of  man.  Viewed  as  steps  in  the  growth  of  ascend- 
ing humanity,  the  changes  in  history  have  a  deeper 
meaning  to  us.  Our  studies  become  ennobled.  What 
have  been  the  conditions  of  growth  in  the  past  ?  What 
conditions  have  led  to  decline  and  degradation  ?  What 
tends  to  keep  the  individual  retarded  and  immature,  and 
what  tends  to  bring  him  farther  toward  the  ultimate 
humanity  ? 

Now,  as  we  look  back  over  the  annals  of  slowly 
advancing  humanity,  and  behold  the  gradual  develop- 
ment in  wisdom,  skill,  self-control,  and  kindness  can  we 
not  also  look  forward  along  the  same  line  to  a  future  of 
p 


226  THE     GROWTH    OF   MAN. 

ideal  manhood?  If  Christ  be  the  perfect  man,  He  is 
perfect  in  this,  that  the  potentiality  of  the  race  finds  its 
fulfillment  in  Him.  Seen  in  contrast  with  the  perfect 
humanity,  all  else  that  we  know  is  but  infantile.  Decay 
and  death  overtake  us  long  before  we  begin  to  realize 
any  appreciable  nearness  to  the  sublime  ideal  of  the 
Christian  faith. 

'*Z>(?  Imitations  Christi^^  is  one  of  the  grand  books 
of  the  middle  ages.  "Imitation  of  Christ,"  so  far  as 
the  imitation  is  real  —  not  in  speech,  not  in  dress,  not  in 
ceremonies,  but  in  the  inner  life, —  this  alone  can  place  us 
in  close  harmony  with  nature,  and  closer  with  our  fellow- 
men.  The  expression,  "love  of  God,"  is  the  love  of 
good,  the  love  of  that  which  is  abiding,  in  distinction 
from  that  which  is  merely  temporal.  It  may  reduce  itself 
into  love  of  the  higher  life,  in  which  the  progress  of  the 
race  consists.  For,  in  the  words  of  the  good  Thomas  ^ 
Kempis,  "  It  is  vanity  to  love  that  which  is  speedily  pass- 
ing away."  In  the  despairing  words  of  Guinevere  may 
be  heard  the  keynote  of  the  conditions  of  growth: 
"  It  was  my  duty  to  have  loved  the  highest !  " 

"This  is  the  first  and  great  commandment.  And  the 
second  is  like  unto  it.  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thy- 
self. On  these  two  commandments  hang  all  the  law  and  the 
prophets." 

What  I  have  tried  to  say,  I  may  sum  up  in  a  few 
words.  There  is  an  ideal  manhood  to  which  our  human 
race  must  come.  Every  step  toward  this  end  which  the 
individual  man  may  take  is  a  step  won  for  humanity. 
The  end  rests  with  us.  It  is  our  part  in  life  to  work  with 
all  our  strength  toward  the  realization  of  ideal  humanity, 
to  add  one  more  link  to  the  chain  which  joins  the  man- 


THE    IDEAL    MANHOOD.  227 

brute  of  the  past  through  the  man  of  the  present  to  the 
man  of  the  future  —  the  man  who  is  likest  Him  we  have 
chosen  for  our  ideal. 


XV. 

THE   SOCIAL   ORDER.* 

IN  the  crude  civilization  of  to-day  there  is  no  place  for 
anarchy.  Order  is  more  important  than  even  free- 
dom, and  order  must  be  upheld  by  force  if  it  cannot  be 
maintained  in  any  other  way.  Yet  the  ideal  of  civiliza- 
tion must  be  perfect  anarchy — order  maintained  from 
within,  the  recognition  of  order  in  the  hearts  of  men; 
not  order  imposed  upon  men  from  without,  but  the 
forces  within  that  make  for  righteousness  of  thought 
and  action.  The  fruitage  of  civilization  must  be  volun- 
tary co-operation.  When  this  fruitage  is  reached,  then 
it  will  be  time  for  us  to  cast  aside  our  present  social 
order,  to  organize  a  new  one  adapted  to  the  changed 
human  nature  of  the  coming  time,  if  indeed  the  new  one 
by  that  time  is  not  already  formed  and  adopted  uncon- 
sciously and  in  spite  of  ourselves.  We  have  been 
thousands  of  years  working  out  the  social  order  we  have. 
It  is  the  best  that  man  has  ever  found;  it  is  the  best  that 
has  been  possible  with  the  weak  and  wayward  men  who 
are  the  units  of  civilization.  It  is  easy  to  find  fault  with 
our  present  social  organization.  Like  the  men  of  whom 
it  is  made,  it  has  thousands  of  crimes  to  answer  for.  It 
has  been  the  chief  of  the  '*  plug-uglies."  It  has  ground 
slaves  into  the  dust  and  murdered  those  who  would  be 
their  liberators.     In  the  name  of  law  it  still  daily  defies 

*  Notes  from  an  unpublished  lecture. 
228 


THE    PERFECT   ANARCHY.  229 

all  law.  It  daily  stands,  and  must  stand,  for  injustice  and 
oppression,  but  it  also  stands  for  the  removal  of  injustice 
and  oppression,  for  the  growth  of  knowledge,  the  lessen- 
ing of  crime,  the  bringing  of  freedom  to  the  oppressed, 
of  wisdom  to  the  foolish,  of  help  to  the  unfortunate.  It 
has  throughout  the  ages  been  in  advance  of  the  men 
from  whom  it  arises  and  of  whom  it  is  composed.  Its 
movement  is  not  the  expression  of  the  best  in  man. 
That  could  not  be,  for  society  is  collective.  Nor  is  it 
the  expression  of  the  worst,  nor  even  of  the  average.  It 
is  better  than  the  average,  for  this  reason  —  that  a  good 
man  has  more  weight  in  society  and  more  force  in  him- 
self than  a  bad  one;  a  strong  man  counts  for  more  than 
a  weak  one,  a  wise  man  for  more  than  a  fool;  and  this 
will  always  be  so. 

The  perfect  anarchy  will  not  come  through  dynamite. 
Dynamite  is  the  weapon  of  a  coward.  The  men  who, 
by  deeds  of  violence,  have  broken  systems  or  shaken 
society  have  been  the  men  who  have  given  their  own 
lives  as  a  sacrifice,  not  the  men  who  have  given  the  lives 
or  property  of  their  neighbors.  Such  men  as  these 
have  not  needed  to  fortify  themselves  with  stimulants 
nor  with  the  enthusiasm  or  the  cheers  of  others.  It  was 
not  the  courage  of  whisky  that  brought  John  Brown  to 
the  gallows  nor  John  Huss  to  the  stake.  These  men 
had  no  need  to  manufacture  dynamite  bombs  or  to  kill 
the  burghers  that  their  influence  might  be  felt.  They 
gave  themselves  as  a  sacrifice  to  an  unjust  statute  or  an 
unjust  decree,  that  people  might  learn  to  see  clearly  the 
difference  between  these  and  the  laws  of  God.  These 
laws  have  their  basis,  not  in  legislation,  not  in  the  statutes 


230  THE    SOCIAL     ORDER. 

of  Congress,  but  in  the  very  center  of  human  nature, 
and  can  never  be  overthrown.  Against  law  neither 
bullets  nor  ballots  avail  anything.  But  in  mere  statutes 
there  is  no  force.  Statutes  are  the  manners  and  cus- 
toms; law  is  the  life  itself  It  is  the  expression  of  the 
onward  movement  of  human  civilization.  A  statute  is 
a  temporary  compromise  between  struggling  wills  and 
jarring  interests.  It  is  the  expression  of  the  "patched- 
up  broils  of  Congress."  Through  forms  of  statute  men 
play  at  government,  and  in  the  long  run  in  human 
development  statutes  count  for  nothing.  Government 
by  the  people  can  be  successful  only  as  it  becomes  in 
time  goverment  by  law,  and  not  by  statute. 

The  very  perfection  of  society  must  always  appear  as 
imperfection;  for  a  highly  developed  society  is  dynamic. 
It  is  moving  on.  A  static  society,  no  matter  how  perfect 
it, may  seem,  whether  a  Utopia,  Icaria,  or  City  of  the 
Sun,  is  in  a  condition  of  arrested  development.  Its 
growth  has  ceased  and  its  perfection  is  that  of  death. 
The  most  highly  advanced  social  conditions  are  the  most 
unstable.  The  individual  man  counts  for  most  under 
such  conditions;  for  the  growth  of  the  individual  man  is 
the  only  justification  for  the  institutions  of  which  he 
forms  part.  The  most  highly  developed  organism  shows 
the  greatest  imperfections.  The  most  perfect  adaptation 
to  conditions  needs  readaptation,  as  conditions  them- 
selves speedily  change.  The  dream  of  a  static  millen- 
nium, when  struggle  and  change  shall  be  over,  when  all 
shall  be  secure  and  all  happy,  finds  no  warrant  in  our 
knowledge  of  man  and  the  world.  Self-realization  in 
life  is  only  possible  when  self-perdition  is  also  possible. 


LAW   AND    STATUTE.  231 

When  cruelty  and  hate  are  excluded  by  force,  charity 
and  helpfulness  will  go  with  them.  Strength  and  virtue 
have  their  roots  within  man,  and  not  without.  They 
may  be  checked  but  not  greatly  stimulated  by  institu- 
tions and  statutes. 

Thoreau  tells  us  that,  "as  a  snowbank  rises  when  there 
is  a  lull  in  the  wind,  so  when  there  is  a  lull  in  the  truth 
an  institution  springs  up.  By  and  by,  the  truth  blows 
on  and  sweeps  it  away. ' '  This  truth  which  sweeps  away 
institutions  comes  in  the  growth  of  the  individual  man. 
As  his  knowledge  increases  it  is  translated  into  action. 
In  adapting  himself  to  his  environment,  that  which  was 
the  work  of  his  own  ignorance  is  swept  away.  By  this 
means  he  is  sometimes  helpless,  as  the  the  lobster  who 
has  shed  his  shell.  But  the  new  shell  he  has  formed, 
and  which  later  he  must  likewise  shed,  is  ever  stronger 
and  more  roomy. 

In  making  their  own  statutes  the  people  come  dimly 
to  see  that  there  is  a  power  behind  and  above  their 
efforts  —  the  power  of  the  nature  of  man.  Hence, 
slowly  as  the  experiment  of  self-government  goes  on, 
the  rule  of  the  people  changes  from  folly  to  wisdom, 
from  caprice  to  principle,  from  selfishness  to  justice, 
from  statute  to  law.  This  is  the  expression  of  the 
growth  of  civilization.  It  is  the  essence  of  government 
by  public  opinion.  It  is  the  justification  of  universal 
suffrage.  Universal  suffrage  is  the  expression  of  the 
growth  of  civilization,  its  extension  downward,  from 
rank  to  rank,  from  caste  to  caste  —  or,  rather,  from  indi- 
vidual to  individual.     Thus  "freedom  slowly  broadens 


232  THE    SOCIAL    ORDER. 

down,  from  precedent  to  precedent"  Each  generation 
of  men  is  as  free  as  its  character  and  training  allows  it  to 
be.  Each  man  has  the  rights  he  has  the  strength  and 
wisdom  to  hold. 


Any  mistake  in  statutes  is  followed  always  by  going 
farther  in  the  same  direction.  The  harm  done  by  stat- 
utes based  on  unemotional  reasoning  is  nothing  to  the 
mischief  due  to  unreasoning  emotion.  The  man  who 
refuses  to  reason  is  always  sure  to  be  wrong.  Emotion 
is  not  virtue — not  always  on  speaking  terms  with  it. 
' '  Virtue  is  more  dangerous  than  vice,  because  its  excesses 
are  unchecked  by  conscience,"  says  a  French  writer. 
The  most  dangerous  of  moral  ideas  are  those  held  by 
men  without  intellectual  ideas. 

All  goodness,  all  special  helpftilness,  is  in  some  sense 
sacrifice,  though  this  sacrifice  may  be  recompensed  in 
other  ways.  Men  must  be  good  if  they  are  to  live  in 
society;  that  is,  they  must  be  considerate — "in  honor 
preferring  one  another."  But  the  virtues  of  men  gov- 
ernments cannot  have.  A  government  cannot  be  good; 
it  can  simply  be  just;  for  government  can  sacrifice 
nothing.  If  it  attempts  to  be  kind  as  to  the  property 
and  interests  of  others  in  one  case,  injustice  results  in 
other  cases.  Justice  demands  with  all  force  that  one  set 
of  interests  shall  not  be  sacrificed  to  another.  Enforced 
sacrifice  of  the  interests  of  others  is  not  virtue,  but 
injustice.  Goodness  must  throw  away  self.  The  sacrifice 
must  be  self-sacrifice.  Goodness  enforced  by  law  is  cor- 
ruption and  injustice. 


MEN   MUST    GIVE    AND     TAKE.  233 

Society  seems  to  exist  for  its  own  sake,  but  it  does 
not.  It  exists  for  the  sake  of  the  individuals;  but  when- 
ever society  is  imperiled,  or  in  a  struggle  against  its 
enemies,  it  must  appear  as  a  thing  in  itself.  We  must 
save  our  country  in  order  to  save  ourselves. 

All  changes  in  human  society  and  government  must 
be  dictated  by  wisdom,  and  actions  must  be  right  and 
wise.  Hence  the  failure  of  the  temperance  movement 
and  the  populist  movement  as  political  attempts,  because 
they  are  based  on  feeling,  and  on  no  scientific  apprecia- 
tion of  the  laws  which  determine  what  should  be  done, 
and  what  can  be  done.  Good  intentions  do  not  rescue 
unwise  actions  from  failure.  A  man  of  the  best  inten- 
tions is  not  always  a  good  driver  of  an  unruly  team. 

The  growth  of  man  means  the  decline  of  the  ma- 
chinery to  control  or  to  help  him.  He  does  not  need 
governing  when  he  has  self-control.  If  he  continuously 
needs  special  help,  he  is  not  a  man,  but  a  weakling  or  a 
degenerate.  To  give  help  at  special  times,  for  special 
needs,  is  part  of  the  duty  of  altruism.  All  children  are 
weaklings  for  the  time  being.  They  should  be  trained  — 
never  too  much  if  wisely.  But  when  full-grown,  a  man 
must  give  and  take  —  give  his  power,  and  take  the 
results  of  his  actions.  "To  save  men  from  the  conse- 
quences of  their  folly,"  says  Spencer,  "is  to  fill  the  world 
with  fools." 

By  good  or  right  in  human  development,  we  mean 
simply  the  opportunity  for  more  life  or  higher  life.  That 
is  good  which  makes  me  strong  and  gives  strength  to  my 


234  THE    SOCIAL    ORDER. 

neighbors.  Might  does  not  make  right;  but  whatever 
is  right  will  justify  itself  in  persistence;  and  persistence 
is  strength.  That  which  is  weak  dies.  We  only  know 
God's  purposes  by  what  He  permits.  That  which  per- 
sists and  grows,  must  be  in  line  with  such  purposes.  A 
law  is  only  an  observed  generalization  of  what  is.  There 
is  no  law  which  reads,  ' '  This  and  this  ought  to  be,  but 
is  not." 

The  law  of  God  is  different  from  the  ordinances  framed 
in  His  name  by  bands  calling  themselves  His  servants. 
His  law  has  binding  force  from  eternity  to  eternity.  The 
decrees  of  the  church  extend  only  to  the  bounds  of  its 
own  vestry.  The  statutes  of  the  state  have  validity  only 
when  its  armies  can  secure  their  enforcement. 

A  parable  of  the  conduct  of  life  shows  man  in  a  light 
skiff  in  a  tortuous  channel,  beset  with  rocks,  borne  by  a 
falling  current  to  an  unknown  sea.  He  is  kept  awake 
by  the  needs  of  his  situation.  As  his  boat  bumps  against 
the  rocks,  he  must  bestir  himself.  If  this  contact  were 
not  painful,  he  would  not  heed  it.  If  it  were  not  hurtful, 
he  would  not  need  to  heed  it.  Had  he  no  power  to  act, 
he  could  not  heed  it  if  he  would.  But  with  sensation, 
will,  and  the  impulse  to  act,  narrow  though  the  range 
of  freedom  of  action  may  be,  his  safety  rests  in  some 
degree  in  his  own  hands.  That  he  has  secured  safety 
thus  far  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  he  is  alive.  He  may 
choose  his  course  for  himself —  not  an  easy  thing  to  do, 
unless  he  scans  most  carefully  the  nature  of  rocks  and 
waves,  and  his  control  of  the  boat  itself.  He  may  follow 
the  course  of  others  with  some  degree  of  the  safety 


THE    CONDUCT    OF   LIFE.  235 

that  others  have  attained.  He  may  follow  his  own  im- 
pulses, the  incentives  those  before  him  found  safe  as 
guides  to  action.  But  in  new  conditions  neither  conven- 
tionality, nor  impulse,  nor  desire  will  suffice.  He  must 
know  what  is  about  him  in  order  that  he  may  know  what 
he  is  doing.  He  must  know  what  he  is  doing  in  order 
to  do  anything  effectively.  Blind  action  is  more  danger- 
ous than  no  action  at  all.  He  must  be  in  friendly  rela- 
tions with  others,  if  for  no  other  reason  than  that  mutual 
help  may  bring  a  safety  which  no  one  could  secure  for 
himself  alone.  Wisdom  is  knowing  what  should  be 
done  next.  Virtue  is  doing  it.  The  will  is  man  in 
action.  The  intellect  is  its  guide.  If  the  life  of  man, 
as  thus  pictured,  be  a  life  hemmed  in  by  the  inexorable 
Fates,  then  the  Will  is  one  of  the  Fates,  and  must  take 
its  place  with  the  rest  of  them.  The  man  who  can  will 
is  a  factor  in  the  universe. 


XVI. 
THE    SAVING    OF   TIME.* 

"  T^HE  gods  for  labor  give  us  all  good  things."  This 
1  was  part  of  the  philosophy  of  the  ancient  Greeks. 
They  learned  it  as  a  fact  of  experience  long  before  Epi- 
chamus  first  put  it  into  words.  Over  and  over  again  each 
generation  of  men  tries  its  own  experiments,  and  comes 
back  to  the  same  unvarying  conclusion.  In  a  thousand 
forms,  in  all  languages,  this  idea  has  found  its  way  into 
the  wisdom  of  men.  And  it  is  a  part  of  the  same  expe- 
rience that  the  gods  never  give  anything  worth  having 
for  any  other  price.  In  their  dealings  with  men  they 
receive  no  other  coinage.  They  know  no  other  meas- 
ure of  value.  Temporary  loans  they  sometimes  grant, 
but  when  the  day  of  payment  comes,  they  do  not  fail  to 
charge  their  due  rate  of  interest.  They  never  change 
their  valuations,  and  they  never  forget 

"  By  their  long  memories  the  gods  are  known."  This 
proverb,  like  the  other,  has  its  source  in  a  universal  ex- 
perience. Taken  fi-om  the  forms  of  classic  poetry  and 
cast  into  the  language  of  to-day,  it  indicates  simply  the 
universality  of  law.  When  they  spoke  of  the  gods  in 
phrases  like  these,  the  Greeks  meant  what  we,  in  a 
different  way,  personify  as  the  "  Forces  of  Nature." 
These  are  the  powers  about  us  which  act  unceasingly, 
and  in  ways  which  never  change.     These  are  the  realities 

*  Commencement  Address,  University  of  Indiana,  1891. 
236 


THE    FORCES    OF   NATURE.  237 

of  the  universe.  All  else  is  inert  matter.  Human  knowl- 
edge consists  in  the  recognition  of  these  ways  and  forces. 
We  learn  to  know  them  from  our  contact  with  them. 
Human  power  depends  on  acting  in  accord  with  such 
knowledge.  In  this  lie  the  possibilities  of  man.  He 
who  knows  the  truth  can  trust  all  and  fear  nothing. 
There  is  no  treachery  in  Nature's  laws.  He  who  strikes 
as  the  gods  strike  has  the  force  of  infinity  in  his  blows. 
He  who  defies  them  wields  a  club  of  air. 

These  laws  are  real  and  universal,  and  no  man  nor 
nation  has  ever  accomplished  anything  in  opposition  to 
them.  The  existence  of  the  simplest  of  these  laws,  those 
which,  like  the  law  of  gravitation,  can  be  exactly  deter- 
mined, men  now  readily  admit.  The  man  who  leaps  from 
a  precipice  expects  to  be  hurt  when  he  reaches  the  earth. 
The  law  of  falling  bodies  is  too  obvious  to  leave  room  for 
doubt  as  to  its  results.  But  the  laws  of  organic  life  are 
less  simple  than  these.  The  laws  we  but  half  understand 
we  hope  in  some  way  to  defeat.  Most  complex  of  all 
laws  are  those  of  ethics  and  economics.  Because  these 
are  not  well  understood,  and  the  relations  of  cause  and 
effect  are  not  easily  traced,  the  average  man  believes  that 
he  is  shrewd  enough  to  break  them  and  to  escape  the 
penalty. 

One  of  these  laws  of  life  which  men  are  prone  to  dis- 
regard is  that  which  decrees  failure  to  him  who  seeks 
something  for  nothing,  and  well-being  to  him  who  pays 
as  he  goes. 

It  is  one  of  the  truths  of  modern  biology  that  progress 
in  organic  life  comes  through  self-activity.  In  the  last 
analysis  most  forms  of  advance  in  power  or  in  specializa- 
tion of  structure  among:  organisms  reduces  itself  to  the 


238  THE    SAVING    OF    TIME. 

saving  of  time.  Time  must  be  measured  in  terms  of 
effort,  and  the  essence  of  progress  is  that  none  should 
slip  by  without  effort  or  change. 

In  the  embryonic  stages  of  the  various  animal  forms 
there  is  a  period  when  any  two,  higher  and  lower,  are 
alike;  in  this,  at  least,  that  no  tests  we  may  apply  can 
show  a  difference.  One  element  of  divergence  comes 
through  the  varying  rates  of  developments.  Time  is  saved 
in  the  one  organism;  it  is  lost  in  the  other.  As  growth 
goes  on,  the  forms  we  call  lower  pass  slowly  through 
the  various  stages  of  life;  their  growth  is  altogether 
finished  before  any  high  degree  of  specialization  is 
reached.  The  embryo  of  the  higher  form  passes  through 
the  same  course,  but  with  a  swiftness  in  some  degree 
proportioned  to  its  future  possibility.  Less  time  is  spent 
on  non-essentials,  and  we  may  say  that,  through  the 
saving  of  time  and  force,  it  is  enabled  to  push  on  to 
higher  development. 

The  gill  structure  of  the  fish,  its  apparatus  for  purify- 
ing the  blood  by  contact  with  the  air  dissolved  in  water, 
lasts  for  its  whole  lifetime.  In  most  fishes  there  is  no 
hint  that  any  other  mode  of  respiration  could  exist,  or 
could  be  effective.  The  frog,  a  higher  animal  than  the 
fish,  sustains  for  part  of  its  life  a  similar  apparatus,  but  a 
further  development  sets  in,  and  at  last  the  inherited 
structure  of  the  gills  gives  place  to  organs  which  insure 
the  contact  of  the  blood  with  atmospheric  air.  Gill  struc- 
tures are  likewise  inherited  by  the  bird,  and  mammal, 
and  man,  as  well  as  by  the  frog  and  fish;  for  by  the  law 
of  heredity  no  creature  can  ever  wholly  let  go  of  its  past. 
The  fact  that  its  ancestors  once  breathed  in  water  can 
never  be  entirely  forgotten.     The  same  stages  of  growth 


ACCELERATION  AND    RETARDATION.      239 

are  passed  through  in  birds  or  mammals  as  in  frogs  or 
fishes,  but  long  before  the  bird  is  hatched  or  the  mammal 
is  bom,  the  gill  structures  have  disappeared,  or  have 
suffered  total  modification.  The  true  life  of  the  new 
animal  is  begun  at  a  point  far  beyond  the  highest  attain- 
ment of  the  frog  or  the  fish.  The  law  of  acceleration 
hurries  the  embryo  along  through  these  temporary 
stages,  and  in  this  fact  of  acceleration  comes  the  possi- 
bility of  progress. 

On  the  other  hand,  with  animal  or  plant,  degeneration 
and  degradation  result  from  the  loss  of  time.  Retarded 
development  is  incomplete  development.  Whatever 
narrows  the  activity  of  the  individual,  whatever  tends 
to  make  of  life  —  be  it  of  animal  or  man  —  simply  a 
matter  of  eating  and  sleeping  and  a  continuance  of  the 
species,  leads  to  degradation  and  loss  of  effectiveness. 
The  creatures  which  rule  the  world  are  the  children  of 
struggle  and  storm.  The  sheltered  life  leads  to  inability 
to  live  without  shelter.  The  loss  of  self-activity  makes 
parasites  and  paupers,  whether  among  animals,  or  plants, 
or  men.  It  is  one  of  those  universal  laws  which  act 
through  all  ages  and  all  organisms,  through  the  long 
memories  of  all  the  gods,  that  the  creature  which  does 
not  translate  time  into  growth  shall  drop  out  of  existence. 

And  now,  leaving  the  lower  orders  of  life  aside,  I  wish 
to  consider  some  relations  of  these  laws  of  self-activity 
to  our  own  lives  and  the  lives  of  our  neighbors.  ' '  A 
nation,"  it  has  been  wisely  said,  "is  an  assemblage  of 
men  and  women  who  can  take  care  of  themselves." 
Whatever  influence  strengthens  this  power  in  the  indi- 
vidual makes  the  nation  strong;  and,  conversely,  the 
presence  of  every  man  or  woman  who  does  not,  or  can- 


240  THE    SAVING    OF    TIME. 

not,  take  care  of  himself,  casts  an  additional  burden  on 
the  rest.  This  power  of  self-support  goes  with  the  saving 
of  the  individual  time.  Franklin  calculated  that  if  every 
man  and  woman  should  spend  three  or  four  hours  each 
day  in  useful  occupation,  poverty  would  disappear,  and 
the  afternoon  of  each  day  and  the  whole  afternoon  of  our 
lives  could  be  reserved  for  physical,  mental,  or  spiritual 
improvement.  That  we  cannot  thus  have  the  afternoon 
to  ourselves  is  due  to  the  fact  that  we  are  paying  our 
neighbor's  debts.  Our  neighbor  has  taken  our  time. 
We  are  doing  more  than  our  share  of  the  drudgery  that 
hinders  growth,  and  this  because  others  in  the  same 
community  are  doing  too  little  for  tiieir  own  develop- 
ment. 

The  end  of  the  social  organism  is  fullness  of  life  for  the 
individual.  The  forms  of  society  avail  nothing  if  they  do 
not  bring  larger  life  to  the  individual  units.  Whatever 
is  not  good  for  the  individual  man,  cannot  be  good  for 
humanity. 

We  hear  every  day  allusions  to  the  wrongs  of  labor, 
to  the  justice  which  never  comes  to  the  poor  man,  and 
to  the  favor  which  always  follows  the  rich.  We  hear 
of  the  industrial  crimes  by  which  the  rich  grow  richer  and 
the  poor  grow  poorer.  We  see  every  day  the  advertise- 
ments of  the  poor  man's  friend,  paid  for  out  of  the  poor 
man's  money,  and  all  of  them  seem  to  tell  the  same 
story.  It  is  the  desire  of  the  poor  man's  friend  to 
handle  the  poor  man's  money,  and  his  chief  qualifica- 
tion is  the  fact  that  he  has  never  yet  shown  any  skill  in 
handling  his  own. 

We  know  very  well  that  these  wrongs  of  labor  are  not 
imaginary.     It   happens  too   often  that  those  who  are 


INDUSTRIAL     WAR.  241 

within  may  bar  tne  doors  against  those  who  are  without. 
We  know,  too,  that  under  human  laws  it  too  often  occurs 
that  those  the  world  calls  fortunate  have  the  luck  of  foxes 
and  wolves,  and  can  show  no  moral  claim  to  the  game 
they  are  devouring. 

Much  that  we  call  money-making  is  not  the  addition 
of  wealth.  It  is  money-transferring,  not  money-gaining. 
It  is  the  process  of  making  slaves  of  others,  by  turning 
into  the  pocket  of  the  one  that  which  is  rightfully  earned 
by  the  brains  or  the  hands  of  others.  Some  day  this 
manner  of  ' '  making  money, ' '  whether  practiced  by  the 
"predatory  rich,"  or  the  equally  "predatory  poor," 
will  become  impossible.  It  will  pass  under  the  ban  as 
blackmail  and  highway  robbery  have  passed.  When  it 
is  condemned  by  public  opinion  the  law  will  condemn  it, 
too;  for  our  statutes  are  only  attempts  at  the  formal 
expression  of  such  opinion.  Industrial  warfare  is  not 
competition.  It  is  the  struggle  of  devices  to  stifle  com- 
petition. Competition  is  rivalry,  to  be  sure,  but  rivalry 
under  conditions  of  fair  play.  Its  function  is  to  secure 
the  best  service  —  to  put  the  right  man  in  the  right 
place.  That  one  man  should  devour  another  is  not 
competition.  It  is  war.  The  abolition  of  private  warfare 
within  a  nation  has  been  one  of  the  most  important  steps 
in  human  civilization.  The  abolition  of  private  war  in 
industrial  relations  will  be  another  step  scarcely  lower  in 
importance.  But  this  must  come  with  the  growth  of 
human  wisdom,  by  which  destructive  and  dishonest  prac- 
tices may  be  condemned.  It  cannot  be  brought  about  by 
the  application  of  force.  It  cannot  follow  any  form  of 
arbitrary  legislation.  All  statutes  must  be  of  equal  appli- 
cation; for  in  taking  away  from  the  barons,  of  whatever 

Q 


242  THE    SAVING    OF    TIME. 

kind  —  feudal  or  industrial,  —  the  right  of  private  war, 
the  people  are  bound  to  guarantee  that  private  war  shall 
not  be  waged  against  them. 

With  all  that  may  be  said  of  the  injustice  of  our  social 
order,  there  are  not  many  whose  place  in  it  is  not  fixed 
by  their  own  character  and  training.  In  America  to-day 
most  men  find  that  the  position  awarded  them  is  the 
only  one  possible.  Accident  and  misfortune  aside,  not 
many  are  poor  who  could  ever  have  been  otherwise.  To 
Robinson  Crusoe  alone  on  his  desert  island,  as  Dr. 
Warner  has  shown,  most  forms  of  misery  we  know  could 
have  come  if  he  had  developed  their  causes.  Weakness 
and  poverty  are  not  wholly  caused  by  social  condi- 
tions. Even  with  no  social  system  at  all,  folly,  vice, 
or  crime  will  always  bring  weakness,  misery,  poverty. 
Misery,  in  general,  is  nature's  protest  against  personal 
degradation.  No  man  needs  the  help  of  others  in  order 
to  degrade  himself. 

To  be  poor  in  worldly  goods  is  not  all  of  poverty. 
Such  poverty  may  be  in  itself  no  evil.  Wealth  is  a 
cosdy  thing.  Many  a  man  is  poor  because  he  has 
intelligently  refused  to  pay  the  price  of  wealth.  He  has 
turned  his  time  and  effort  into  channels  which  brought 
him  spiritual  or  mental  rather  than  economic  gain.  But 
such  as  these  are  satisfied  with  their  bargain,  and  not  one 
of  them  is  aware  that  any  wrong  has  been  done  to  him. 
He  has  what  he  has  paid  for,  and  asks  for  nothing  else ; 
and  we  who  know  him  as  our  neighbor  never  think  of 
him  as  poor.  He  could  only  wish  for  wealth  as  a  means 
of  securing  a  more  perfect  povefty. 

"The  gods  for  labor  give  us  all  good  things,"  but  not 
all  to  the  same  man.     Each  must  choose  for  himself, 


THE    RICH    AND     THE    POOR.  243 

and  it  is  a  happy  condition  that  each  one  who  has  earned 
the  right  to  choose  is  satisfied  with  his  choice.  Those 
who  have  not  earned  this  right  must,  from  the  nature 
of  things,  be  discontented.  The  man  who  has  wasted 
his  time  must  take  the  last  choice.  He  comes  in  for  the 
litde  that  is  left.  With  the  leisure  of  life  all  spent  in 
advance,  the  interest  on  borrowed  time  must  be  paid 
under  the  hardest  of  creditors. 

A  great  problem  of  our  day,  which  engages  the  best 
thoughts  of  the  strongest  minds,  is  this:  How  can  the 
power  of  self-support  be  restored  to  those  who  have  lost 
it  ?  How  are  those  who  swim  on  the  crest  of  the  wave 
to  lend  a  hand  to  the  submerged  tenth  who  struggle 
ineffectively  in  waters  which  only  grow  deeper  as  our 
civilization  moves  on  ?  What  can  the  strong  do  for 
the  weak  ? 

"The  rich  man,"  it  is  often  said,  "  must  know  how 
the  poor  man  lives,"  for  in  keeping  together  is  the  safety 
of  humanity.  But  even  more  pertinent  than  this  is  the 
other  saying,  that,  in  his  turn,  "the  poor  man  must 
learn  to  know  how  the  rich  man  works."  It  is  true 
enough  that  there  are  among  us  some  rich  men  who 
never  work,  some  few  supported  splendidly  in  idleness, 
at  public  cost,  the  reward  of  the  good  fortune,  or  the 
hard  work,  or  the  successful  trickery  of  some  ancestor. 
These  gilded  paupers  are  not  many  in  America,  after  all, 
—  some  ' '  four  hundred  ' '  are  there  not,  in  each  of  our 
great  cities?  And  the  n.imber  is  not  increasing;  for  their 
hold  on  inherited  power  grows  constantly  weaker.  They 
are  but  froth  on  the  waves  of  humanity,  and  the  burden 
of  carrying  them  is  not  one  of  the  heaviest  the  American 
citizen   has   to  bear.      Their  life  in  our  country  is  an 


244  THE    SAVING    OF    TIME. 

anachronism,  as  they  themselves  are  not  slow  to  recog- 
nize. Their  place,  and  their  time,  is  in  feudal  Europe, 
and  not  in  the  America  of  to-day. 

In  the  old  times  the  poor  man  worked,  and  the  rich 
man  was  idle;  the  poor  man  paid  the  taxes  which  sup- 
ported the  gentleman  in  pauperism.  "The  rich," 
indeed,  "grew  richer,  and  the  poor  poorer."  The 
poor  man  worked  on  with  an  ever- decreasing  vitality, 
because  work  absorbed  his  strength,  and  he  could  not 
direct  his  own  forces.  Work  without  self-consent  is  not 
growth,  but  slavery.  In  like  manner,  the  rich  man 
slipped  into  degeneracy,  because  his  existence  was  pur- 
poseless, and  he  was  conscious  of  no  need  of  self-support. 
The  man  of  leisure,  whether  rich  or  poor,  is  in  the  body 
politic  like  carbonic  acid  in  the  air  —  it  supports  neither 
combustion  nor  respiration.  His  presence  is  poisonous, 
though  in  himself  he  may  be  productive  of  neither  harm 
nor  good. 

There  are  some  rich  men,  however,  who  have  the  right 
to  be  rich.  They  have  paid  the  price,  and  they  are  en- 
titled to  enjoy  their  bargain.  He  who  saves  the  toil 
of  a  thousand  men  has  a  right  to  some  share  of  their 
earnings.  Sooner  or  later,  we  may  be  sure,  this  share 
will  be  no  more  and  no  less  than  has  been  fairly  earned. 
The  forces  of  nature  are  hemmed  in  by  no  patent.  No 
man  can  have  a  perpetual  monopoly;  and,  sooner  or 
later,  the  knowledge  of  the  one  becomes  the  property 
of  all. 

The  power  of  capital  does  not  lie  in  its  own  force,  but 
in  the  force  of  the  brains  which  must,  sooner  or  later, 
take  possession  of  it,  and  to  which  labor  undirected  by 
mind  must  ever  stand  in  the  relation  of  a  slave.     Money 


CAPITAL    AND    BRAINS.  245 

alone  has  no  power.  ' '  The  fool  and  his  money  are  soon 
parted."  Capital  is  only  an  instrument.  It  is  effective 
only  when  it  represents  a  single  will  in  action.  The 
decision  of  one  man  has  greater  force  than  the  feeble 
or  clashing  desires  of  thousands. 

It  is  not  true  that  wealth  is  the  result  of  "labor  ap- 
plied to  the  forces  of  nature. ' '  The  gaining  of  wealth 
is  the  result  of  wise  direction  or  of  skillful  manipulation. 
In  the  long  run,  the  majority  of  employers  of  labor  are 
eaten  out  of  house  and  home  by  employees  who  have 
no  stake  in  the  result,  and,  therefore,  nothing  to  lose 
from  failure. 

The  little  boy  in  the  child's  story*  says: 

"My  feet,  they  haul  me  round  the  house; 
They  hoist  me  up  the  stairs; 
I  only  have  to  steer  them,  and 
They  ride  me  every wheres." 

The  average  man's  view  of  capital  is  of  the  same  kind. 
He  underestimates  the  importance  of  the  steering  part 
of  the  work,  without  which  no  labor  yields  wealth,  and 
without  which  capital  is  ineffective.  If  he  understood 
the  value  of  wise  direction  of  effort  he  would  cease  to  be 
an  average  man. 

The  industrial  dangers  which  threaten  our  country 
come  not  primarily  from  the  power  of  the  rich,  but 
from  the  weakness  of  the  poor.  Too  often  the  poor  are 
taking  to  themselves  a  leisure  which  they  have  never 
earned.  The  price  they  have  paid  in  life  is  the  price  of 
poverty.  If  part  of  it  goes  for  whisky  and  tobacco,  the 
rest  must  go  for  rags  and  dirt.  Even  the  lowest  reward 
of  labor  well  spent  will  buy  a  happy  home.     But,  with- 

•  From  "  The  Lark,"  San  Francisco. 


846  THE    SAVING    OF    TIME. 

out  frugality  and  temperance,  no  rate  of  wages  and  no 
division  of  profits  can  avail  to  save  a  man  from  poverty; 
and  the  waste  of  one  man  injures  not  only  himself,  but 
carries  harm  to  all  his  neighbors,  joined  to  him  in  dis- 
astrous industrial  alliance. 

We  are  told  that  "poverty  is  the  relentless  hell" 
that  yawns  beneath  civil  society,  So  it  is;  and  a  sim- 
ilar comparison  may  be  made  in  the  case  of  the  penalty 
which  follows  the  violation  of  any  other  law  of  ethics 
and  economics.  * '  By  their  long  memories  the  gods  are 
known."  Under  their  laws  we  live,  and  beneath  us 
forever  yawn  their  penalties.  But  we  may  change  this 
metaphor  a  little.  May  it  not  be  that  this  yawning, 
' '  relentless  hell, ' '  is  due  in  part  to  the  presence  among 
us  of  the  yawning,  relentless  horde  of  men  who  would 
gain  something  for  nothing?  In  whatever  form  of  in- 
dustry this  influence  is  felt,  it  must  come  as  industrial 
depression. 

The  essential  cause  of  poverty  is  the  failure  to  adapt 
means  to  ends.  A  woman  in  the  Tennessee  mountains 
explained  once  the  condition  of  the  * '  poor  whites ' '  in 
these  words:  "  Poor  folks  have  poor  ways."  That 
their  ways  are  poor  is  the  cause  of  their  economic  weak- 
ness. And  again  it  is  written :  ' '  The  destruction  of  the 
poor  is  their  poverty. ' '  Without  skill  to  bring  about 
favorable  results,  the  poor  are  constantly  victims  of  cir- 
cumstances. These  conditions  of  their  lives  lead  to 
reduced  vitality,  lowered  morality,  and  loss  of  self- 
respect.  Effective  life  demands,  as  Huxley  tells  us, 
"absolute  veracity  of  thought  and  action."  Those  who 
lack  this  will  always  be  poor,  whatever  our  social  or 
industrial  conditions,  unless  they  become  slaves  to  the 


THE    POOR    AND     THEIR     WAYS.  247 

will  of  others,  or  unless  their  weakness  be  placed  as  a 
burden  on  collective  effort.  It  is  certainly  true  that, 
even  though  each  man  in  America  were  industrious 
to  the  full  measure  of  his  powers,  the  poor  would  still 
"be  with  us."  There  will  always  be  impracticable  and 
incapable  men,  those  who  put  forth  effort  enough,  but 
who  can  do  nothing  for  others  that  others  are  likely 
to  value.  There  will  still  be  the  sick  and  the  broken, 
the  weak  and  the  unfortunate.  But  if  these  were  our 
only  poor,  all  men  would  be  their  neighbors.  Statis- 
tics have  shown  that,  of  ten  persons  in  distress  in  our 
great  cities,  the  condition  of  six  is  due  to  intemper- 
ance, idleness,  or  vice,  three  to  old  age  and  weakness 
following  a  thriftless  or  improvident  youth,  and  one  to 
sickness,  accident,  or  loss  of  work.  The  unfortunate 
poor  are  but  a  small  fraction  of  the  great  pauperism. 
Were  there  no  pretenders,  all  who  travel  on  the  road  to 
Jericho  should  be  Good  Samaritans.  Why  not  ?  The 
impulse  to  charity  is  the  common  instinct  of  humanity; 
but  the  priest  and  Levite  of  our  day  have  been  so  many 
times  imposed  upon  that  all  distress  is  viewed  with  sus- 
picion. The  semblance  of  misfortune  is  put  on  for  the 
sake  of  the  oil,  and  the  wine,  and  the  pieces  of  silver. 
We  ' '  pass  by  on  the  other  side  ' '  because  in  our  times 
we  have  learned  that  even  common  charity  may  become 
a  crime.  We  have  seen  the  man  who  has  ' '  fallen  by  the 
wayside"  put  vitriol  in  his  children's  eyes  that  their 
distress  may  appeal  to  us  yet  more  strongly.  We  have 
learned  that  to  give  food  to  star\'ing  children  thereby 
helps  to  condemn  them  to  a  life  of  misery  and  crime. 
To  give  something  for  nothing  is  to  help  destroy  the 
possibility  of  self-activity.     And  money  gained  without 


248  THE    SAVING    OF    TIME. 

effort  is  ill-gotten  gain.  A  blind  man,  to  whom  some 
one  offered  money,  once  said:  "We  should  never  give 
money  to  a  blind  man;  for  he  needs  all  the  strength  he 
can  have  to  help  him  compete  with  men  who  can  see." 
Ill-timed  help  destroys  the  rationality  of  life.  If  the 
laws  of  life  were  changed  so  that  the  fool  and  his  money 
were  less  easily  parted,  money  would  be  wastied  still 
more  foolishly  than  now. 

Money  given  outright  is  as  dangerous  as  a  gift  of 
opium,  and  its  results  are  not  altogether  different.  Only 
the  very  strong  can  receive  it  with  safety.  Only  the  very 
earnest  can  repay  with  interest  the  loans  of  the  gods. 
Unearned  rewards  cut  the  nerve  of  future  effort.  The 
man  who  receives  a  windfall  forever  after  watches  the 
wind.  There  is  but  one  good  fortune  to  the  earnest  man. 
This  is  opportunity;  and  sooner  or  later  opportunity  will 
come  to  him  who  can  make  use  of  it.  Undeserved  help 
brings  the  germs  of  idleness.  Even  nature  is  too  generous 
for  perfect  justice.  She  gives  to  vagabonds  enough  to 
perpetuate  vagabondage. 

The  strength  of  New  England  lay  in  this  —  that  on 
her  rocky  hills  only  the  industrious  man  could  make  a 
living,  and  with  the  years  the  habit  of  industry  became 
ingrained  in  the  New  England  character.  This  strength 
to-day  is  seen  wherever  New  England  influences  have 
gone.  The  gseat  West  was  built  with  the  savings  of 
New  England.  Go  to  the  prairies  of  Iowa,  where  the 
earth  gives  her  choicest  bounty  for  the  least  effort,  over 
and  over  again  you  will  find  that  these  rich  farms  bear 
mortgages  given  to  some  farmer  on  the  Massachusetts 
hills.  The  poor  land  of  the  mountains,  worked  by  a 
man  who  gave  his  time  and  his  work,  yields  enough  to 


THE    FREEDOM    OF    THE    FARMER.        249 

pay  for  the  rich  land,  too.  The  Iowa  farmer  must  work 
with  equal  diligence  if  he  is  to  hold  his  own  against  the 
competition  of  Massachusetts, 

Not  long  ago,  I  crossed  the  State  of  Indiana  on  the 
railway  train.  It  makes  no  difference  where  or  in  what 
direction.  It  was  a  bright  day  in  April,  when  the  sun 
shone  on  the  damp  earth,  and  when  one  could  almost 
hear  the  growing  of  the  grass.  There  are  days  and  days 
like  this,  which  every  farm  boy  can  remember  —  days 
which  brought  to  him  the  delight  of  living;  but  to  the 
thrifty  farmer  these  days  brought  also  their  duties  of 
plowing,  and  planting,  and  sowing.  The  hope  of  the 
spring  was  in  all  this  work,  and  no  one  thought  of  it  as 
drudgery.  The  days  were  all  too  short  for  the  duties 
which  crowded,  and  the  right  to  rest  could  only  come 
when  the  grain  was  in  the  ground,  where  the  forces  of 
nature  might  wake  it  into  life.  An  hour  in  the  grow- 
ing spring  is  worth  a  week  in  the  hot  midsummer;  and 
he  must  be  a  poor  farmer,  indeed,  who  does  not  realize 
this. 

And  I  thought  that  day  of  the  freedom  of  the  farmer. 
He  trades  with  nature  through  no  middle-man.  Nowhere 
is  forethought  and  intelligence  better  paid  than  in  deal- 
ings with  Mother  Nature.  She  is  as  honest  as  eternity, 
and  she  never  fails  to  meet  the  just  dues  of  all  who  have 
claims  upon  her.  She  returns  some  fifty-fold,  some  hun- 
dred-fold, for  all  that  is  intrusted  to  her:  never  fifty-fold 
to  him  who  deserves  a  hundred. 

Just  then  the  train  stopped  for  a  moment  at  a  flag- 
station —  a  village  called  Cloverdale,  a  name  suggestive  of 
sweet  blossoms  and  agricultural  prosperity.  A  commer- 
cial traveler,  dealing  in  groceries  and  tobacco,  got  off;  a 


250  THE    SAVING    OF    TIME. 

crate  of  live  chickens  was  put  on,  and  the  cars  started 
again.  The  stopping  of  a  train  was  no  rare  event  in 
that  village;  for  it  happens  two  or  three  times  every  day. 
The  people  had  no  welcome  for  the  commercial  traveler, 
no  tears  were  shed  over  the  departure  of  the  chickens; 
yet  on  the  station  steps  I  counted  forty  men  and  boys 
who  were  there  when  the  train  came  in.  Farm  boys, 
who  ought  to  have  been  at  work  in  the  fields;  village 
boys,  who  might  have  been  doing  something  somewhere 

—  every  interest  of  economics  and  aesthetics  alike  calling 
them  away  from  the  station  and  off  to  the  farms. 

Two  men  attended  to  the  business  of  the  station.  The 
solitary  traveler  went  his  own  way.  The  rest  were  there 
because  they  had  not  the  moral  strength  to  go  anywhere 
else.  They  were  there  on  the  station  steps,  dead  to  all 
life  and  hope,  with  only  force  enough  to  stand  around 
and  '  *  gape. ' ' 

At  my  destination  I  left  the  train,  and  going  to  the 
hotel,  I  passed  on  a  street  comer  the  noisy  vender  of  a 
rheumatism  cure.  Sixty  men  and  boys  who  had  no 
need  for  cures  of  any  kind —  for  they  were  already  dead 

—  were  standing  around  with  mouths  open  and  brains 
shut,  engaged  in  killing  time.  I  was  sorry  to  see  that 
many  of  these  were  farmers.  All  this  time  their  neg- 
lected farms  lay  bathed  in  the  sunlight,  the  earth  ready 
to  rejoice  at  the  touch  of  a  hoe. 

Not  long  ago  I  had  occasion  to  cross  a  village  square. 
I  saw  many  busy  men  upon  it,  men  who  had  a  right  to 
be  there,  because  they  were  there  on  their  own  business. 
Each  one  takes  part  in  the  great  task  of  caring  for  the 
world  when  he  is  able  and  willing  to  care  for  himself. 
On  the  corner  of  the  square  a  wandering  vagrant,  with  a 


THE  BIRDLIME  OF  HABIIUAL  IDLENESS.    251 

cracked  accordion,  set  forth  strains  of  doleful  music.  The 
people  stood  around  him,  like  flies  around  a  drop  of  mo- 
lasses. An  hour  later  I  returned.  The  accordion  and 
its  victims  were  still  there,  as  if  chained  to  the  spot. 
The  birdlime  of  habitual  idleness  was  on  their  feet,  and 
they  could  not  get  away.  They  will  never  get  away. 
The  mark  of  doom  is  on  them.  They  will  stay  there 
forever. 

In  these  days,  the  farmer  and  the  workingman  have 
many  grievances  of  which  they  did  not  know  a  genera- 
tion ago.  The  newspapers  and  the  stump-speakers  tell 
us  of  these  wrongs,  and,  from  time  to  time,  huge  unions 
and  alliances  are  formed  to  set  them  right.  I  go  back  to 
the  old  farm  in  Western  New  York  on  which  I  was  bom 
—  the  farm  my  father  won  from  the  forest,  and  on  which 
he  lived  in  freedom  and  independence,  knowing  no  mas- 
ter, dreading  no  oppression.  I  find  on  that  farm  to-day 
tenants  who  barely  make  a  living.  I  go  over  the  farm ; 
I  see  unpruned  fruit  trees,  wasted  forest  trees,  farm  im- 
plements rusting  in  the  rain  and  sun,  falling  gates,  broken 
wagons,  evidences  of  wasted  time  and  unthrifty  labor. 
When  one  sees  such  things,  he  must  ask  how  much  of 
the  oppression  of  the  farmer  is  the  fault  of  the  times  and 
how  much  is  the  fault  of  the  man. 

It  may  be  in  part  the  poorness  of  his  ways,  rather  than 
the  aggression  of  hi?  neighbors,  which  has  plunged  him 
into  poverty.  In  very  truth,  it  is  both ;  but  the  one  may 
be  the  cause  of  the  other.  It  is  only  the  bom  slave  that 
can  be  kept  in  slavery.  If  a  farmer  spend  a  day  in  the 
harvest-time  in  efforts  to  send  a  fool  to  the  Legisla- 
ture, or  a  knave  to  Congress,  should  he  complain  if  the 
laws  the  fools  and  knaves  make  add  to  his  own  taxes  ? 


252  THE    SAVING    OF    TIME. 

If  he  stand  all  day  in  the  public  square  spellbound  by 
a  tramp  with  an  accordion;  or,  still  worse,  if  he  lounge 
about  on  the  sawdust  floor  of  a  saloon,  talking  the  stuff 
we  agree  to  call  politics,  never  reading  a  book,  never 
thinking  a  thought  above  the  level  of  the  sawdust  floor, 
need  he  be  surprised  if  his  opinions  do  not  meet  with 
respect  ? 

I  can  well  remember  the  time  when  the  farmer  was 
a  busy  man.  There  is  many  a  farm  to-day  on  which  he 
is  still  busy.  It  does  not  take  a  close  observer  to  recog- 
nize these  farms.  You  can  tell  them  as  far  as  you  can 
see.  Their  owners  are  in  alliance  with  the  forces  of 
nature.  The  gods  are  on  their  side,  and  they  only  ask 
from  politicians  that  they  keep  out  of  their  sunlight. 
Their  butter  sells  for  money;  their  oats  are  clean;  their 
horses  are  in  demand;  whatever  they  touch  is  genuine 
and  prosperous.  The  cattle  call  the  farmer  up  at  dawn; 
the  clover  needs  him  in  the  morning;  the  apples  and 
potatoes  in  the  afternoon;  the  corn  must  be  husked  at 
night.  A  busy  man  the  successful  farmer  is.  Being 
busy,  he  finds  time  for  everything.  He  reads  ' '  bound 
books";  he  enjoys  the  pleasures  of  travel;  he  educates 
his  family;  he  keeps  intelligent  watch  on  the  affairs  of  the 
day.  He  does  not  find  time  to  stand  on  the  station  steps 
in  the  middle  of  the  afternoon  to  watch  a  thousand  trains 
go  by  on  a  thousand  consecutive  days.  He  carries  no 
handicap  load  of  tobacco  and  whisky.  He  goes  to  the 
county-seat  when  he  has  business  there.  He  goes  with 
clean  clothes,  and  comes  back  with  a  clean  conscience. 
He  has  not  time  to  spend  each  seventh  day  on  the  court- 
house square  talking  the  dregs  of  scandal  and  politics 
with  men  whose  highest  civic  conception  is  balanced  by 


THE    TAX    OF   SHIFTLESSNESS.  253 

a  two-dollar  bill;  nor  has  he  time  to  waste  on  nostrum- 
venders  or  vagrants  with  accordions. 

I  hear  the  farmers  complaining — and  most  justly  com- 
plaining—  of  high  taxes;  but  no  duty  on  iron  was  ever 
so  great  as  the  tax  he  pays  who  leaves  his  mowing- 
machine  utnheltered  in  the  storm.  The  tax  on  land  is 
high;  buJrf^f^ays  a  higher  tax  who  leaves  his  meadows  to 
grow  up  to  whiteweed  and  thistles.  The  tax  for  good 
roads  is  high;  but  a  higher  toll  is  paid  by  the  farmer  who 
goes  each  week  to  town  in  mud  knee-deep  to  his  horses. 
There  is  a  high  tax  on  personal  property;  but  it  is  not 
so  high  as  the  tax  on  time  which  is  paid  by  the  man 
who  spends  his  Saturdays  loitering  about  the  village 
streets,  or  playing  games  of  chance  in  some  "  dead-fall " 
saloon. 

Mowing-machines,  thrashers,  harvesters,  and  all  the 
array  of  labor-saving  contrivances  of  an  altruistic  age 
serve  nothing  if  they  are  not  rightly  used.  They  are 
burdens,  not  helps,  if  the  time  they  save  be  not  taken  in 
further  production.  Labor-saving  machinery  becomes 
the  costliest  of  luxuries  if  the  time  it  saves  be  turned  into 
idleness  or  dissipation. 

I  know  a  hundred  farmers  in  Southern  Indiana  who 
lose  regularly  one-sixth  of  their  time  by  needless  visits 
to  the  county-seat,  and  in  making  these  visits  needlessly 
long.  The  farmer's  time  is  his  capital;  its  use  is  his 
income.  One-sixth  of  his  time  means  one-sixth  of  his 
income,  or  else  his  whole  time  is  not  worth  saving.  It 
is  this  sixth  which  represents  the  difference  between 
poverty  and  prosperity.  If  this  wasted  sixth  were  saved 
by  every  fanner  in  Indiana,  the  State  would  be  an 
industrial  paradise.      To  have  lived  in   Indiana  would 


254  THE    SAVING    OF    TIME. 

be  an  education  in  itself.  People  would  come  from  the 
ends  of  the  earth  to  see  the  land  which  has  solved  the 
labor  question. 

But  it  may  be  that  their  own  valuation  is  a  just  one. 
Perhaps  there  are  some  farmers  whose  time  has  no 
economic  value.  There  are  other  such  in  every  com- 
munity and  in  every  line  in  life.  The  idiot,  the  insane, 
the  broken,  the  dilettante,  the  criminal.  For  some  of 
these  great  hospitals  are  maintained,  because  they  can 
be  more  cheaply  supported  in  public  lodgings  at  the 
common  cost.  Shall  we  add  the  weary  farmer  to  this  list? 
Why  not  have  a  gfreat  State  hospital  for  all  men  whose 
time  is  worthless — a  great  square  courtyard,  covered 
with  sawdust,  with  comfortable  dry-goods  boxes,  where 
they  might  sit  for  the  whole  day,  and  the  whole  year, 
talking  politics  or  "playing  pedro"  to  the  music  of  the 
hand-organ,  watching  the  trains  go  by?  The  rest  of  the 
world  could  then  go  on  with  the  world's  work,  with  some 
addition,  no  doubt,  to  the  taxes,  but  with  corresponding 
gain  in  having  the  streets  open,  the  saloons  closed,  the 
demagogue  silenced,  and  the  pastures  free  from  weeds 
and  thistles. 

The  frost  is  a  great  economic  agent  as  a  spur  to  human 
activity.  There  are  lands  where  the  frost  never  comes, 
and  where  not  one-sixth,  but  six-sixths,  of  the  time  of 
almost  every  man  is  devoted  to  any  purpose  rather  than 
that  of  attending  to  his  own  affairs.  It  is  nature's  great 
hospital  for  the  incurably  lazy.  The  motto  of  the  tropics 
is  summed  up  in  one  word,  "Mafiana,"  "to-morrow." 
To-morrow  let  us  do  it;  we  must  eat  and  sleep  to-day. 
"Mafiana  por  la  mafiana,"  one  hears  over  and  over 
again  at  every  suggestion  involving  the  slightest  effort 


THE    LAND    OF    TO-MORROW.  255 

It  is  too  warm  to-day;  the  sunshine  is  too  bright;  the 
shade  too  pleasant;' — "  Maiiana"  let  it  be.  This  is  the 
land  where  nothing  is  ever  done.  "  Why  should  we  do 
things  when  to  rest  and  not  to  do  is  so  much  pleasanter  ? 
There  is  the  endless  succession  of  to-morrows.  They 
have  come  on  to  us  since  eternity,  and  surely  they  will 
continue  to  come.  Let  us  rest  in  the  shade,  and  wait 
for  the  next  to-morrow. ' ' 

I  have  not  meant  that  one  word  of  this  should  be  a 
special  criticism  of  the  American  farmer.  It  is  still 
broadly  true  that  the  farmers  as  a  class  are  the  sanest  of 
our  people,  the  least  infected  by  follies  and  with  most 
faith  in  the  natural  relations  of  cause  and  effect.  The 
farmers  have  not  yet  come  to  feel  that  their  advancement 
must  be  assured  through  the  repression  of  others.  They 
have  not  yet  turned  from  nature  to  legislation  in  their 
search  for  wealth.  The  farmer  deals  with  the  earth 
directly.  It  is  the  earth,  not  society,  that  owes  him  a 
living.  Of  all  callings,  his  is  least  related  to  the  con- 
ventionalities of  man.  That  he  has  scorned  these  con- 
ventionalities, that  he  has  ' '  hated  the  narrow  town  and 
all  its  fashions,"  has  been  the  source  of  some  of  his 
misfortunes.  For  the  town  is  nearer  the  center  of  legis- 
lation, and  it  has  not  been  slow  to  cast  burdens  upon 
others  for  its  own  purposes.  But  if  the  farmer  is  the 
victim  of  unequal  taxation  or  of  unjust  discriminations, 
as  he  certainly  is,  it  is  his  duty  and  his  privilege  to  make 
matters  right.     Even  though  sometimes  he  acts  blindly 

—  with  the  discrimination  of  the  "bull  in  a  china-shop," 

—  as  when  he  votes  for  bad  roads,  cheap  men,  cheap 
money,  and  crippled  public  schools,  it  is  not  a  source 
of  discouragement.     Men  in  cities  do  even  worse  than 


256  THE    SAVING    OF    TIME. 

this.  The  farmer  will  know  better  when  he  has  looked 
more  deeply  into  the  matter.  But  whatever  the  repeal 
of  bad  legislation  may  do,  the  primal  necessity  remains. 

"  He  who  by  the  plow  would  thrive, 
Himself  must  either  hold  or  drive." 

Whoever  will  prosper  in  any  line  of  life  must  save  his 
own  time  and  do  his  own  thinking.  He  must  spend 
neither  time  nor  money  which  he  has  not  earned.  He 
must  not  do  in  a  poor  way  what  others  do  in  a  better. 
The  change  of  worse  men  for  better  is  always  painful — 
it  is  often  cruel.  But  it  must  come.  The  remedy  is  to 
make  men  better,  so  that  there  need  be  no  change. 

The  rise  of  the  common  man  which  has  been  going 
on  all  these  centuries  demands  that  the  common  man 
must  rise.  This  is  the  ' '  change  from  status  to  con- 
tract," to  use  the  words  of  Sir  Henry  Mayne,  which  is 
the  essential  fact  in  modern  progress.  But  this  rise  has 
its  sorrows  as  well  as  its  joys.  Man  cannot  use  the 
powers  and  privileges  of  civilization  without  sharing  its 
responsibilities. 

In  the  progress  of  civilization  every  form  of  labor 
must  tend  to  become  a  profession.  The  brain  must  con- 
trol the  hand.  The  advance  of  civilization  means  the 
dominance  of  brain.  It  means  the  ehmination  of  un- 
skilled work.  The  man  who  does  not  know,  nor  care 
to  know,  how  farming  is  carried  on,  cannot  remain  a 
farmer.  Whatever  human  laws  may  do,  the  laws  of  the 
gods  will  not  leave  him  long  in  possession  of  the  ground. 
If  he  does  not  know  his  business,  he  must  let  go  of  the 
earth,  which  will  be  taken  by  some  one  who  does.  In 
the  words  of  a  successful  farmer  whom  I  know,  ' '  Let 


TIME    AND    ETERNITY  257 

Other  people's  affairs  alone,  miad  your  own  business,  and 
you  will  have  prosperity."  If  not  in  the  fullest  measure, 
it  will  still  be  all  that  you  have  paid  for,  and  thus,  all  that 
you  deserve. 

I  have  wished  to  teach  a  single  lesson,  true  alike  la 
all  men, —  the  lesson  of  the  saving  of  time. 

To  you,  as  students,  I  may  say:  The  pathway  of  your 
lives  lies  along  the  borders  of  the  Land  of  Mariana.  It 
is  easy  to  turn  into  it  and  to  lose  yourselves  among  its 
palms  and  bananas.  That  thus  far  in  your  lives  you  are 
still  on  the  right  way  is  shown  by  your  presence  here 
to-day.  Were  it  not  so,  you  would  be  here  to-morrow. 
You  would  wait  for  your  education  till  the  day  that  never 
comes. 

Different  men  have  different  powers.  To  come  to  the 
full  measure  of  these  powers,  constitutes  success  in  life. 
But  power  is  only  relative.  It  depends  on  the  factor  of 
time.  With  time  enough,  we  could,  any  of  us,  do  any- 
thing. With  this  great  multiplier,  it  matters  little  what 
the  other  factor  is.  Any  man  would  be  all  men,  could 
he  have  time  enough.  With  time  enough,  all  things 
would  be  possible.  With  eternity,  man  becomes  as  the 
gods.  But  our  time  on  earth  is  not  eternity.  We  can 
do  but  little  at  the  most.  And  the  grim  humorist 
reminds  us  "we  shall  be  a  long  time  dead."  So  every 
hour  we  waste  carries  away  its  life,  as  the  drop  of  falling 
water  carries  away  the  rock.  Every  lost  day  takes  away 
its  cubit  from  our  stature. 

So  let  us  work  while  yet  it  b  day,  and  when  the  even- 
ing falls  we  may  rest  under  the  shade  of  the  palm-trees. 
He  who  has  been  active  has  earned  the  right  to  sleep; 
and  when  we  have  finished  our  appointed  work,    "the 

M 


258  THE    SAVING    OF    TIME. 

rest  is  silence."  The  toilsome,  busy  earth  on  which  the 
strength  of  our  lives  has  been  spent  shall  be  taken  away 
from  us.  It  shall  be  "rolled  away  like  a  scroll,"  giving 
place  to  that  eternity  which  has  no  limit,  nor  environ- 
-.  ment,  and  whose  glory  is  past  all  understanding. 


XVII. 
THE  NEW  UNIVERSITY.* 

WE  come  together  to-day  for  the  first  time  as 
teachers  and  students.  With  this  relation  the 
hfe  of  the  Leland  Stanford  Junior  University  begins.  It 
is  such  personal  contact  of  young  men  and  young  women 
with  scholars  and  investigators  which  constitutes  the  life 
of  the  university.  It  is  for  us  as  teachers  and  students 
in  the  university's  first  year  to  lay  the  foundations  of  a 
school  which  may  last  as  long  as  human  civilization. 
Ours  is  the  youngest  of  the  universities,  but  it  is  heir  to 
the  wisdom  of  all  the  ages,  and  with  this  inheritance  it 
has  the  promise  of  a  rapid  and  sturdy  growth. 

Our  university  has  no  history  to  fall  back  upon;  no 
memories  of  great  teachers  haunt  its  corridors;  in  none 
of  its  rooms  appear  the  traces  which  show  where  a  great 
man  has  lived  or  worked.  No  tender  associations  cling, 
ivy-like,  to  its  fresh,  new  walls.  It  is  hallowed  by  no 
traditions.  It  is  hampered  by  none.  Its  finger-posts 
still  point  forward.  Traditions  and  associations  it  is  ours 
to  make.  From  our  work  the  future  of  the  university 
will  grow,  as  the  splendid  lily  from  the  modest  bulb. 

But  the  future,  with  its  glories  and  its  responsibilities, 
will  be  in  other  hands.  It  is  ours  at  the  beginning  to 
give  the  University  its  form,  its  tendencies,  its  customs. 
The  power  of  precedent  will  cause  to  be  repeated  over 

*  President's  Address,  Opening  Day  of  the  Lelan  I  Stanford  Junior  Uni- 
versity, October  i,  1891. 


26o  THE    NEW    UNIVERSITY. 

and  over  again  everything  that  we  do  —  our  errors  aa 
well  as  our  wisdom.  It  becomes  us,  then,  to  begin  the 
work  modestly,  as  under  the  eye  of  the  coming  ages. 
We  must  lay  the  foundations  broad  and  firm,  so  as  to 
give  full  support  to  whatever  edifice  the  future  may 
build.  Ours  is  the  humbler  task,  but  not  the  least  in 
importance,  and  our  work  will  not  be  in  vain  if  all  that 
we  do  is  done  in  sincerity.  As  sound  as  the  rocks  from 
which  these  walls  are  hewn  should  be  the  work  of  every 
teacher  who  comes  within  them.  To  the  extent  that  this 
is  true  will  the  university  be  successful.  Unless  its  work 
be  thus  "wrought  in  a  sad  sincerity,"  nothing  can  redeenr 
it  from  failure.  In  this  feeling,  and  realizing,  too,  that 
only  the  help  we  give  to  the  men  and  women  whose  lives 
we  reach  can  justify  our  presence  here,  we  are  ready  to 
begin  our  work. 

We  hope  to  give  to  our  students  the  priceless  legacy 
of  the  educated  man,  the  power  of  knowing  what  really 
is.  The  higher  education  should  bring  men  into  direct 
contact  with  truth.  It  should  help  to  free  them  from  the 
dead  hands  of  old  traditions  and  to  enable  them  to  form 
opinions  worthy  of  the  new  evidence  each  new  day 
brings  before  them.  An  educated  man  should  not  be 
the  slave  of  the  past,  not  a  copy  of  men  who  have  gone 
before  him.  He  must  be  in  some  degree  the  founder  of 
a  new  intellectual  dynasty;  for  each  new  thinker  is  a  new 
type  of  man.  Whatever  is  true  is  the  truest  thing  in  the 
universe,  and  mental  and  moral  strength  alike  come  from 
our  contact  with  it. 

Every  influence  which  goes  out  from  these  halls  should 
emphasize  the  value  of  truth.  The  essence  of  scholar- 
ship is  to  know  something  which  is  absolutely  true;  to 


THE     VALUE    OF    TRUTH.  361 

have,  in  the  words  of  Huxley,  ' '  some  knowledge  to  the 
certainty  of  which  no  authority  could  add  nor  take  away 
one  jot  nor  tittle,  and  to  which  the  tradition  of  a  thou- 
sand years  is  but  as  the  hearsay  of  yesterday."  The 
scholar,  as  was  once  said  of  our  great  chemist,  Benjamin 
Silliman,  must  have  "faith  in  truth  as  truth,  faith  that 
there  is  a  power  in  the  universe  good  enough  to  make 
truth-telling  safe,  and  strong  enough  to  make  truth- 
telling  effective."  The  personal  influence  of  genuine- 
ness, as  embodied  in  the  life  of  a  teacher,  is  one  of  the 
strongest  moral  forces  which  the  school  can  bring  to  its 
aid;  for  moral  training  comes  not  mainly  by  precept,  but 
by  practice.  We  may  teach  the  value  of  truth  to  our 
students  by  showing  that  we  value  it  ourselves. 

In  like  manner,  the  value  of  right  living  can  be  taught 
by  right  examples.  In  the  words  of  a  wise  teacher,* 
' '  Science  knows  no  source  of  life  but  life.  The  teacher 
is  one  of  the  accredited  delegates  of  civilization.  In 
Heine's  phrase,  he  is  a  Knight  of  the  Holy  GhosL  If 
virtue  and  integrity  are  to  be  propagated,  they  must  be 
propagated  by  people  who  possess  them.  If  this  child- 
world  about  us  that  we  know  and  love  is  to  grow  up  into 
righteous  manhood  and  womanhood,  it  must  have  a 
chance  to  see  how  righteousness  looks  when  it  is  lived. 
That  this  may  be  so,  what  task  have  we  but  to  garrison 
our  State  with  men  and  women?  If  we  can  do  that, 
if  we  can  have  in  every  square  mile  in  our  country  a  man 
or  woman  whose  total  influence  is  a  civilizing  power,  we 
shall  get  from  our  educational  system  all  it  can  give  and 
all  that  we  can  desire."  So  we  may  hope  that  this  new 
school  will  do  its  part  in  the  work  of  civilization,  side  by 

*  Professor  Williftm  Lowe  Bryan. 


263  THE    NEW    UNIVERSITY. 

side  with  her  elder  sister,  the  University  of  the  State, 
and  in  perfect  harmony  with  every  agency  which  makes 
for  right  thinking  and  right  Hving.  The  harvest  is 
bounteous,  but  laborers  are  still  all  too  few;  for  a  gen- 
erous education  should  be  the  birthright  of  every  man 
and  woman  in  America. 

I  shall  not  try  to-day  to  give  you  our  ideal  of  what  a 
university  should  be.  If  our  work  is  successful,  our 
ideals  will  appear  in  the  daily  life  of  the  school.  In  a 
school,  as  in  a  fortress,  it  is  not  the  form  of  the  building, 
but  the  strength  of  the  materials,  which  determine  its 
effectiveness.  With  a  garrison  of  hearts  of  oak,  it  may 
not  matter  even  whether  there  be  a  fortress.  Whatever 
its  form,  or  its  organization,  or  its  pretensions,  the  char- 
acter of  the  university  is  fixed  by  the  men  who  teach. 
"  Have  a  university  in  shanties,  nay  in  tents,"  Cardinal 
Newman  has  said,  "but  have  great  teachers  in  it."  The 
university  spirit  flows  out  from  these  teachers,  and  its 
organization  serves  mainly  to  bring  them  together. 
' '  Colleges  can  only  serve  us, "  says  Emerson,  ' '  when 
their  aim  is  not  to  drill,  but  to  create  ;  when  they 
gather  from  far  every  ray  of  various  genius  to  their 
hospitable  halls,  and  by  their  concentrated  fires  set  the 
heart  of  their  youth  in  flame. ' '  Strong  men  make  uni- 
versities strong.  A  great  man  never  fails  to  leave  a 
great  mark  on  every  youth  with  whom  he  comes  in  con- 
tact. Too  much  emphasis  cannot  be  laid  on  this:  that 
the  real  purpose  of  the  university  organization  is  to  pro- 
duce a  university  atmosphere — such  an  atmosphere  as 
gathered  itself  around  Arnold  at  Rugby,  around  DoUin- 
ger  at  Munich,  around  Linnaeus  at  Upsala,  around 
Werner  at    Freiburg,   around   Agassiz  at   Cambridge, 


INFLUENCE    OF    GREAT    TEACHERS.        263 

around  Mark  Hopkins  at  Williamstown,  around  Andrew 
D.  White  at  Ithaca,  around  all  great  teachers  everywhere. 

A  professor  to  whom  original  investigation  is  unknown 
should  have  no  place  in  a  university.  Men  of  common- 
place or  second-hand  scholarship  are  of  necessity  men 
of  low  ideals,  however  much  the  fact  may  be  disguised. 
A  man  of  high  ideals  must  be  an  investigator.  He 
must  know  and  think  for  himself.  Only  such  as  do 
this  can  be  really  great  as  teachers.  Some  day  our  uni- 
versities will  recognize  that  their  most  important  pro- 
fessors may  be  men  who  teach  no  classes,  devoting  their 
time  and  strength  wholly  to  advanced  research.  Their 
presence  and  example  will  be,  perhaps,  worth  to  the 
student  body  a  hundred-fold  more  than  the  precepts  and 
drill  of  the  others.  They  set  high  standards  of  thought 
They  help  to  create  the  university  spirit,  without  which 
any  college  is  but  a  grammar  school  of  a  little  higher 
pretensions. 

And  above  and  beyond  all  learning  is  the  influence 
of  character,  the  impulse  to  virtue  and  piety  which 
comes  from  men  whose  lives  show  that  virtue  and  piety 
really  exist  For  the  life  of  the  most  exalted  as  weU 
as  the  humblest  of  men,  there  can  be  nobler  motto  than 
that  inscribed  by  the  great  scholar  of  the  last  century 
over  his  home  at  Hammarby  :  "  Innocue  vivito ;  numen 
adesty  Live  blameless;  God  is  near.  "Thb,"  said 
Linnaeus,  ' '  is  the  wisdom  of  my  life. ' '  Every  advance 
which  we  make  toward  the  realization  of  the  truth  of  the 
permanence  and  immanence  of  law,  brings  us  nearer 
to  Him  who  is  the  great  First  Cause  of  all  law  and  all 
phenomena. 

While  the  work  of  the  teachers  must  make  the  kernel 


364  THE    NEW    UNIVERSITY. 

of  the  university,  we  must  rejoice  that  here  at  Palo  Alto 
even  the  husks  are  beautiful.  Beauty  and  fitness  are 
great  forces  in  education.  Every  object  with  which  the 
young  mind  comes  in  contact  leaves  on  it  its  trace. 
"Nothing  is  unimportant  in  the  life  of  man,"  and  the 
least  feature  of  our  surroundings  has  its  influence,  greater 
or  less.  "There  was  a  child  went  forth  every  day," 
Walt  Whitman  tells  us,  "and  the  first  object  that  it 
looked  upon,  that  object  it  became."  It  may  be  for 
a  moment  or  an  hour,  or  ' '  for  changing  cycles  of  years. ' ' 
The  essence  of  civilization  is  exposure  to  refining  and 
humanizing  influences.  "A  dollar  in  a  university," 
Emerson  tells  us,  ' '  is  worth  more  than  a  dollar  in  a 
jail,"  and  every  dollar  spent  in  making  a  university 
beautiful  will  be  repaid  with  interest  in  the  enriching  of 
the  students'  lives. 

It  has  been  a  reproach  of  America  that  for  the  best 
of  her  sons  and  daughters  she  has  done  the  least.  She 
has  built  palaces  for  lunatics,  idiots,  crippled,  and  Wind, 
—  nay,  even  for  criminals  and  paupers.  But  the  college 
students —  "the  young  men  of  sound  mind  and  earnest 
purpose,  the  noblest  treasures  of  the  State,"  to  quote 
the  words  of  President  White,  "she  has  housed  in  vile 
barracks."  The  student  has  no  need  for  luxury.  Plain 
living  has  ever  gone  with  high  thinking.  But  grace 
and  fitness  have  an  educative  power  too  often  forgotten 
in  this  utilitarian  age.  These  long  corridors  with  their 
stately  arches,  these  circles  of  waving  palms,  will  have 
their  part  in  the  students'  training  as  surely  as  the  chem- 
ical laboratory  or  the  seminary-room.  Each  stone  in 
the  quadrangle  shall  teach  its  lesson  of  grace  and  of 
genuineness,  and  this  Valley  of  Santa  Clara  —  the  valley 


THE    BEAUTY   OF    PALO    ALTO.  265 

of ' '  holy  clearness ' '  —  shall  occupy  a  warm  place  in  every 
student's  heart.  Pictures  of  this  fair  region  will  cling 
to  his  memory  amid  the  figures  of  draughting-room. 
He  will  not  forget  the  fine  waves  of  our  two  mountain 
ranges,  overarched  by  a  soft  blue  Grecian  sky,  nor  the 
ancient  oak-trees,  nor  the  gently  sloping  fields,  changing 
from  vivid  green  to  richest  yellow,  as  the  seasons  change. 
The  noble  pilbrs  of  the  gallery  of  art,  its  rich  treasures, 
the  choicest  remains  of  the  ideals  of  past  ages  —  all  these, 
and  a  hundred  other  things  which  each  one  will  find  out 
for  himself,  shall  fill  his  mind  with  bright  pictures,  never 
to  be  rubbed  out  in  the  wear  of  life.  Thus  in  the  char- 
acter of  every  student  shall  be  left  some  imperishable 
trace  of  the  beauty  of  Palo  Alto. 

Agassiz  once  said:  "The  physical  suffering  of  human- 
ity, the  wants  of  the  poor,  the  craving  of  the  hungry 
and  naked,  appeal  to  the  sympathies  of  every  one  who 
has  a  human  heart.  But  there  are  necessities  which  only 
the  destitute  student  knows.  There  is  a  hunger  and 
thirst  which  only  the  highest  charity  can  understand  and 
relieve;  and  on  this  solemn  occasion  let  me  say  that  every 
dollar  given  for  higher  education,  in  whatever  depart- 
ment of  knowledge,  is  likely  to  have  a  greater  influence 
on  the  future  character  of  our  nation  than  even  the 
thousands,  hundred  thousands,  and  millions  which  we 
have  spent,  or  are  spending,  to  raise  the  many  to  material 
ease  and  comfort." 

I  need  not  recall  to  you  the  history  of  the  foundation 
of  the  Leland  Stanford  Junior  University.  It  has  its 
origin  in  the  shadow  of  a  great  sorrow,  and  its  purpose 
in  the  wish  to  satisfy  for  the  coming  generations  the  hun- 
ger and  thirst  after  knowledge  —  that  undying  curiosity 


266  THE    NEW    UNIVERSITY. 

which  is  the  best  gift  of  God  to  man.  The  influence  of 
the  boy,  to  the  nobiUty  of  whose  short  hfe  the  Leland 
Stanford  Junior  University  is  a  tribute  and  a  remem- 
brance, will  never  be  lost  in  our  country.  To  him  we 
owe  the  inspiration  which  led  the  founders  to  devote  the 
earnings  of  the  successful  ventures  of  a  busy  life  to  the 
work  of  higher  education. 

Six  years  ago,  in  one  of  our  California  journals,*  these 
words  were  used  with  reference  to  the  work  which  we 
begin  to-day:  "  Greater  than  the  achievement  of  lasting 
honor  among  one's  fellow-men  of  later  generations,  is  it 
to  become  a  living  power  among  them  forever.  It  rarely 
happens  to  one  man  and  woman  to  have  both  the  power 
and  the  skill  to  thus  live  after  death,  working  and  shap- 
ing beneficently  in  the  lives  of  many  —  not  of  tens  nor 
of  hundreds,  but  of  thousands  and  of  tens  of  thousands, 
as  the  generations  follow  on.  Herein  is  the  wisdom  of 
money  spent  in  education,  that  each  recipient  of  influ- 
ence becomes  in  his  time  a  center  to  transmit  the  same 
in  every  direction,  so  that  it  multiplies  forever  in  geo- 
metric ratio.  This  power  to  mold  unborn  generations 
for  good,  to  keep  one's  hands  mightily  on  human  affairs 
after  the  flesh  has  been  dust  for  years,  seems  not  only 
more  than  mortal,  but  more  than  man.  Thus  does  man 
become  co-worker  with  God  in  the  shaping  of  the  world 
to  a  good  outcome." 

The  Golden  Age  of  California  begins  when  its  gold  is 
used  for  purposes  like  this.  From  such  deeds  must  rise 
the  new  California  of  the  the  coming  century,  no  longer 
the  California  of  the  gold-seeker  and  the  adventurer,  but 
the  abode  of  high-minded  men  and  women,  trained  in 

*MiIicent  W.  Shinn,  in  The  Overland  Monthly. 


THE    GOLDEN   AGE    OF  CALIFORNIA.      267 

the  wisdom  of  the  ages,  and  imbued  with  the  love  of 
nature,  the  love  of  man,  and  the  love  of  God.  And 
bright  indeed  will  be  the  future  of  our  State  if,  in  the 
usefulness  of  the  university,  every  hope  and  prayer  of 
the  founders  shall  be  realized 


XVlll. 
A   CASTLE  IN  SPAIN. 

T  KNOW  a  castle,  in  the  Heart  of  Spain, 
Builded  of  stone,  as  if  to  stand  for  aye. 
With  tile  roof,  red  against  the  azure  sky, — 
For  skies  are  bluest  in  the  Heart  of  Spain. 
So  fair  a  castle  men  build  not  again  ; 
'Neath  its  broad  arches,  in  its  courtyard  fair, 
And  through  its  cloisters — open  everywhere  — 
/  wander  as  I  will,  in  sun  or  rain. 
Its  inmost  secrets  unto  me  are  known. 
For  mine  the  castle  is.     Nor  mine  alone: 
'  Tis  thine,  dear  heart,  to  have  and  hold  alway. 
'  Tis  all  the  world's,  likewise,  as  mine  and  thine; 
For  whoso  passes  through  its  gates  shall  say, 
^^ I  dwelt  within  this  castle:  it  is  mine/" 


The  End 


List  of  Miscellaneous  Publications 

...OF... 

THE  WHITAKER  &  RAY  COMPANY 

San  Francisco 
Complete  Descriptive  Circular  sent  on  application 

Postpaid  Prices 

adventures  of  a  Tenderfoot— H.  H.  Sauber $1  00 

About  Dante— Mrs.  Frances  Sanboni 100 

Among  the  Redwoods — Poems — Lillian  H.  Shuey        -       -       -       -  25 

Beyond  the  Gates  of  Care— Herbert  Bashford 1  00 

Backsheesh— Book  of  Travels— Mrs.  William  Beckman      -       -       -  1  50 

California  and  the  Callfornians — David  Starr  Jordan     -       -       -  25 
Care  and  Culture  of  Men— David  Starr  Jordan      -       -       -       -       -150 

Chants  for  the  Boer— Joaquin  Miller     -...---  25 

Complete  Poetical  Works  of  Joaquin  Miller 2  50 

Crumbs  of  Comfort— AUie  M.  Felker            1  00 

California's  Transition  Period— S.  H.Willey 100 

Doctor  Jones'  Picnic— S.  E.  Chapman 75 

Delphine  and  Other  Poems— L.  Adda  Nichols 1  00 

Educational  Questions— W.  C.  Doub 1  00 

Forty-Nine- Song— Lelia  France       .-..-...  lo 

Forget-Me-Nots- Lillian  L.  Page 50 

Guide  to  Mexico — Christobal  Hidalgo 50 

Hail  California — Song— Josephine  Gro        .--..-  lo 

History  of  Howard  Presbyterian  Church— S.  H.  Willey         -       -  1  00 

Life— Book  of  Essays— John  R.  Rogers 1  00 

Love  and  Law — Thos.  P.  Bailey 25 

Lyrics  of  the  Golden  West— W.  D.  Crabb 1  00 

Main  Points— Rev.  Chas-  R.  Brow-n      -       -       -       -       -       -       -       -  1  25 

Man  Who  Might  Have  Been— Rev.  Robt.  Whitaker         -       -       -  25 

Matka  and  Kotik— David  Starr  Jordan 150 

Modem  Argonaut— L.  B.  Davis 100 

Missions  of  Neuva  California— Chas.  F.  Carter 1  50 

Pandora — Mrs.  Salzscheider      .-..----.  lOO 

Percy,  or  the  Four  Inseparables— M.  Lee    -       -       -       -       -       -100 

Personal  Impressions  of  Colorado  Grand  Canyon     -       -       .  i  OO 

Rudyard  Reviewed— W.J.  Peddicord 100 

Seven  Ages  of  Creation 250 

Some  Homely  Little  Songs— A.  J.  Waterhouse 1  25 

Songs  of  the  Soul— Joaquin  Miller 1  00 

Story  of  the  Innumerable  Company— David  Starr  Jordan       -       -  1  25 

Sugar  Pine  Murmurings— Eliz.  S.  Wilson 1  00 

Training  School  for  Nurses — A.  Mabie 50 

Without  a  Name — Poems — Edward  Blackman  -       -       -       .       -  l  00 

Wolves  of  the  Sea— Poems— Herbert  Bashford 1  00 

LATEST  ISSUES 

Interviews  with  a  Monocle  — Leopold  Jordan 50 

My  Trip  to  the  Orient  — Rev.  J.  C.Simmons            ....  150 

Rearing  Silkworms  —  Mrs.  Carrie  Williams 1  25 

Western  View  Series,  No.  i  —  San  Francisco  Views        -       -  15 

Western  View  Series,  No.  a  — Alaska  Views           ....  15 


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